Aurora news releases

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Hospital Among Top One Percent For Quality and Efficiency Of Patient Care

Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center has been honored by the Premier healthcare alliance with the 2007 Premier | CareScience Select Practice National Quality Award for superior patient outcomes in both quality and efficiency.

“This honor reflects the quality care that our staff and physicians provide daily to our patients,” said Dan Meyer, Aurora Sheboygan Memorial administrator. “It is the dedication to patient-centered care, our focus on the patient’s concerns, and the staff’s constant attention to making certain that our patients receive excellent, compassionate care that helped us achieve this high honor.”

Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center is one of 49 hospitals nationally, the top one percent of acute inpatient facilities, recognized with the Select Practice Award. There were more than 4,700 acute care inpatient facilities in the United States eligible to receive the award. Aurora Sheboygan Memorial exhibited the highest level performance in both quality and efficiency of patient care.

“Our staff and the rest of Aurora Health Care that supports us should be incredibly proud today,” said Meyer. “This is a national award that focuses on patient care. It really needs to be noted we did not apply for this award. It was given to us”

“We are pleased to recognize this elite hospital in Sheboygan that offers the highest quality and most efficient patient care,” said Richard A Bankowitz, MD, MBA, FACP, vice president and medical director for Premier Healthcare Informatics. “These hospitals represent the country’s top healthcare facilities for patient care based on performance using objective measures of clinical outcomes and efficiencies.”

As a recipient of the 2007 Select Practice National Quality Award, Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center achieved superior performance in care of patients, as identified by the Premier|CareScience Select Practice methodology.

Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center did not apply for the award, but instead was identified as a top performer in quality and efficiency among all acute care facilities in the MEDPAR 2005 data, regardless of bed size or teaching status.

Select Practice data includes 16 different clinically relevant indicators of risk, more than any other national quality award or designation. The quality index is calculated by combining the outcome deviations for mortality, morbidity and complications into a single quality measure for each facility. The combined quality and efficiency ratings are used to determine the award recipients.

Additional information about the Premier | CareScience Select Practice National Quality Award and related methodology can be found here.

About Premier Inc., 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Serving 1,700 hospitals and more than 47,500 other healthcare sites, Premier is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates one of the nation's largest healthcare purchasing networks, the most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information and one of the largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups in healthcare. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia, and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierinc.com.

About Aurora Health Care
Aurora Health Care is a not-for-profit Wisconsin health care provider and a nationally recognized leader in efforts to improve the quality of health care. Aurora offers services at sites in more than 90 communities throughout eastern Wisconsin.

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Contact: Mark Kantola (920-451-5351)