Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica, Higgins General Hospital Named to Joint Commission List of Top Performers

Posted Date: 9/15/2011

Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica and Higgins General Hospital are among just 13 hospitals in Georgia included on the Joint Commission’s first ever list of top performers.

An independent, not-for-profit organization, the Joint Commission accredits and certifies more than 19,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. The Joint Commission is the nation's oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. To earn and maintain The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval, an organization must undergo an in-depth, on-site survey by a Joint Commission survey team at least every three years.

Joint Commission accreditation reflects an organization’s commitment to meeting certain performance standards. Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton, Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica, Higgins General Hospital in Bremen and Willowbrooke at Tanner, as well at Tanner Home Health and Tanner Hospice Care, are accredited by the Joint Commission.

The 405 hospitals recognized nationally as top performers accounts for only 14 percent of the Joint Commissions’ accredited hospitals. Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica was recognized as a top performing hospital in the treatment of heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care. Higgins General Hospital was recognized as a top performing hospital for the treatment of pneumonia.

“This is a tremendous accomplishment for these hospitals,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health System. “This recognition is a product of the hard work and constant diligence that has gone into ensuring that Tanner’s patients are receiving exceptional care.

The Top Performers on Key Quality Measures program recognizes accredited hospitals and critical access hospitals that attain and sustain excellence in accountability measure performance. A top-performing hospital must first achieve performance of 95 percent or above on a single, composite score that includes all the accountability measures reported to the Joint Commission. Second, the hospital also must meet a 95 percent performance threshold for every accountability measure that is reported to the Joint Commission, excluding any measures with fewer than 30 eligible cases or patients.

“Today, the public expects transparency in the reporting of performance at the hospitals where they receive care, and the Joint Commission is shining a light on the top performing hospitals,” said Mark Chassin, MD, president of the Joint Commission. “Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica and Higgins General Hospital have achieved excellence on a number of vital measurements of quality care.”

Howard said that Tanner will continue to take steps to ensure that patients are receiving the best care available.

“People can expect to receive safe, effective care anytime they enter one of our facilities,” said Howard. “Our medical staff and all our employees are dedicated to achieving positive patient outcomes through evidence-based care processes.”

Deborah Matthews, RN, administrator of Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica, said that much of this credit goes to the hospital’s staff.

“We owe our success to our physicians and our staff,” said Matthews. “They have demonstrated their commitment to do the right thing for every patient, every time.”

Mike Alexander, administrator of Higgins General Hospital, echoed her sentiment.

“Our staff – and especially our nursing department – are the reason we are on this list,” said Alexander. “This hospital has long been dedicated to caring for our neighbors and our community, and ensuring that they receive the very best care is a part of that tradition.”

The complete list of hospitals named to the Joint Commission’s Top Performers on Key Quality Measures list was included in the organization’s annual “Improving America’s Hospitals” report, published Wednesday.

For more information on Tanner Health System, visit www.tanner.org. To find a physician on Tanner’s medical staff, call 770.214.CARE (2273) or click the “Find a Doctor” link at www.tanner.org.

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