GAINESVILLE, Ga. – Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) is one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals according to a study released today by Truven Health Analytics and Georgia’s #1 Hospital according to a recent study by CareChex, a rating service of COMPARION®.
Truven Health compiles the 100 Top Hospitals report by researching acute care, non-federal hospitals across a five-year period to select hospitals demonstrating both top performance and consistent, accelerated improvement. They use public information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to evaluate performance in 10 areas:
- mortality
- expenses
- medical complications
- profitability
- patient safety
- patient satisfaction
- average patient stay
- adherence to clinical standards of care
- post-discharge mortality
- readmission rates for heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia
The study names top hospitals in five different categories – from Major Teaching Hospitals to Small Community Hospitals – and NGMC is one of only 20 Large Community Hospitals selected from across the nation. In fact, NGMC is the only hospital in Georgia in the Large Community group for 2014, just as it was in 2013. NGMC was first named to the 100 Top Hospitals list in 2009, when it won the study’s Everest Award which recognized 23 of the 100 hospitals for demonstrating top performance and accelerated improvement compared to the other elite institutions.
“Everyone in our organization – clinical staff, physicians, board members, volunteers and more – focuses solely on our mission to improve the health of our community in all we do,” says Carol Burrell, president and CEO of Northeast Georgia Health System. “We concern ourselves with accomplishing that mission, not necessarily to win awards, but, thankfully, one naturally leads to the other.”
The CareChex study includes virtually all general, acute, non-federal U.S. hospitals and measures them across several categories including quality of medical care, outcomes of care and patient satisfaction. The 2014 study rated NGMC #1 in Georgia for Overall Hospital Care, Overall Medical Care and Overall Surgical Care – thus earning the distinction of Georgia’s #1 Hospital. The study also rated NGMC as:
- Georgia’s #1 Surgery Hospital
- Georgia’s #1 Heart Hospital
- Georgia’s #1 Women’s Hospital
- Georgia’s #1 Pulmonary Hospital
- Georgia’s #1 Neurology Hospital for Patient Safety
- #6 in the nation for Medical Care
“Being recognized in these studies reflects our medical staff’s commitment to Health System initiatives like our Quest for Excellence,” says Ronald C. Lewis, MD, chief of NGMC’s medical staff and a general surgeon with Northeast Georgia Physicians Group Surgical Associates. “Quest for Excellence implements best practices to improve processes, which ultimately leads to improved quality and better patient outcomes – which is exactly what every person wants when they come to a hospital.”
Hospitals do not apply to be part of either study. To learn more about services offered at NGMC and through NGHS, visit www.nghs.com or call 770-219-3840.
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About Northeast Georgia Health System
Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) is a not-for-profit community health system dedicated to improving the health and quality of life of the people of Northeast Georgia. The Health System offers a full range of healthcare services through its hospital in Gainesville, Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC). Led by volunteer boards made up of community leaders, the 557-bed Medical Center and its medical staff of more than 500 physicians serve almost 800,000 people in more than 13 counties. NGHS is currently building a second hospital, NGMC Braselton, which is scheduled to open in Spring 2015. Learn more at www.nghs.com/Braselton.