Premier Award for Quality recognizes
high-quality care
and operations efficiency
[AUG. 29, 2005] Abraham Lincoln Memorial
Hospital was the smallest hospital as one of 12 winners honored with
the national Premier Award for Quality in the area of heart failure.
Nearly 400 hospitals submitted data to Premier and were eligible for
an award in one of five clinical areas, but only 32 facilities
across the nation received honors.
This nationally recognized award honors clinical
excellence in both quality of care and operational efficiency,
differentiating its winners as industry leaders that deliver
outstanding patient care while reducing the cost of health care by
improving resource utilization.
"Better health care through better use of information and
resources is what distinguishes Premier Award for Quality winners
from their peers," says Stephanie Alexander, senior vice president
and general manager of Premier Healthcare Informatics. "These
hospitals, big and small, are leading the industry, using best
practices and evidence-based decision-making to develop more
efficient ways to deliver excellent patient care."
ALMH’s Premier Award
for Quality was unveiled by Robert T. Clarke, CEO of Memorial Health
System; Brandy Shirley, ALMH human resources; Debra Ackerman, B.S.N,
R.N.; Christine Kawiecki, regional manager for Premier Informatics;
and Woody Hester, president and CEO of ALMH.
Kathleen Vipond, ALMH assistant administrator and director of
professional services, said: "Our employees seek better ways to
improve patient care each and every day. This award is evidence of
our success in developing more efficient ways of delivering
excellent care to our patients."
ALMH and its two Memorial Health System affiliate hospitals --
Memorial Medical Center of Springfield and St. Vincent Memorial
Hospital of Taylorville -- were the first hospitals in the nation to
sign up for this groundbreaking program. Using standardized
administrative, clinical and financial data submitted by hospitals
on a regular basis, Premier measures clinical quality outcomes,
clinical process indicators and resource utilization outcomes. These
risk-adjusted indicators are then examined to identify best
performers in five key clinical areas: heart bypass surgery, heart
failure, heart attack, community-acquired pneumonia, and hip and
knee replacements.
Memorial Medical Center was also honored with a Premier Award for
Quality, in the area of hip and knee replacements. ALMH and MMC were
the only Illinois hospitals recognized among the 32 hospitals across
the nation to receive awards from Premier.
Vipond, along with Dr. Melissa Hardiek of Lincoln Healthcare
Specialists, whose leadership of the Clinical Effectiveness
Committee greatly contributed to ALMH’s success in the category of
heart failure management, accepted the award May 18 on behalf of the
hospital at Premier’s annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition
in Las Vegas, Nev.
"We are pleased to receive this honor in recognition of months of
diligence, but we are by no means going to stop our pursuit of
providing better quality health care for the people and communities
we serve," said Woody Hester, ALMH president and chief executive
officer. "At ALMH, and throughout the health system, we continuously
strive for excellence and firmly believe there is always room for
improvement."
In 2003, Premier joined with the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services to launch the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality
Incentive Demonstration Project. The project tracks hospital
performance on a set of 34 nationally standardized and widely
accepted quality indicators and pays annual incentives to top
performers among participating hospitals.
Only three winners were picked in each category for each hospital
type from the pool of eligible Premier hospitals. The pool was made
up of hospitals that submitted data to Premier between July 2003 and
June 2004. In the area of heart failure, ALMH was honored along with
such prestigious facilities as Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Md., and
Kettering Hospital in Ohio. For a complete list of winners, visit
the Web address
www.premierinc.com/all/quality/award/.
About ALMH
Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital is a community-based general
hospital. ALMH strives to be the "Best Rural Hospital in America" by
providing state-of-the-art facilities for the vast majority of
health care needs. ALMH is a 10-year affiliate of the Memorial
Health System of Springfield, whose vision is to be the leading
health care system that people choose over all others. For more
information on the services provided, visit
www.almh.org or call (217)
732-2161.
About Premier Healthcare Informatics
Premier Healthcare Informatics offers performance measurement,
benchmarking and reporting products, and related advisory services
and methodologies to support health systems’ and hospitals’ quality
improvement efforts. Among its products and services, areas of
expertise include performance measurement according to standards
from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare
Organizations and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
clinical and operational benchmarking, labor management programs,
balanced scorecards, patient satisfaction, evidence-based research,
and patient safety. Premier Healthcare Informatics is part of
Premier Inc., a strategic health care alliance that provides an
array of performance solutions to hospitals and other providers. For
more information about Premier Healthcare Informatics, visit
www.premierinc.com/informatics or call (800) 805-4608.
"We are pleased to receive this honor in recognition of months of
diligence, but we are by no means going to stop our pursuit of
providing better quality health care for the people and communities
we serve," said Woody Hester, ALMH president and chief executive
officer. "At ALMH, and throughout the health system, we continuously
strive for excellence and firmly believe there is always room for
improvement." 
