HealthGrades: Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton, Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica Earn 2012 Outstanding Patient Experience Awards

Posted Date: 6/14/2012

Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health System, left, and Dr. John Burson, chairman of Tanner’s board of directors, received Outstanding Patient Experience Awards for Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica from Katherine Henchen, with HealthGrades. The ratings firm ranked the facilities among the top 10 percent in the nation for patient satisfaction.

For the second year in a row, Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica rank among the top 5 percent of hospitals in the nation for patient satisfaction, earning both facilities Outstanding Patient Experience awards from hospital ratings firm HealthGrades.

Each year, HealthGrades—the leading provider of information to help consumers make an informed decision about a physician or hospital—reviews publicly-reported patient satisfaction data for almost 4,000 U.S. hospitals.

“Our staff at Tanner is keenly aware that we’re not just treating patients, we’re treating neighbors,” said Loy Howard, president and CEO of Tanner Health System. “We’ve made it a priority to be among the top hospitals in the country for the quality of our care, as well as to be among the top in terms of patient satisfaction. People should know that, at Tanner, not only are you going to receive exceptional care, but you’re going to be treated with kindness and respect as well.”

To designate its 2012 Outstanding Patient Experience Award recipients, HealthGrades analyzed hospital survey data from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), and identified 332 hospitals performing in the top 10 percent in the nation for patient satisfaction. Hospitals had to meet stringent criteria on the number of patient beds each provides, the number of patients who participated in the HCAHPS survey and clinical-quality thresholds in order to be eligible for the award.

The firm has found that 80 percent of patients treated at the nation’s best-performing hospitals would definitely recommend the hospital, compared to only 53 percent of patients who received care from the poorest performing hospitals.

“This year, HealthGrades paid particular attention to the impact that patient-provider communication has on patient experience,” said Kristin Reed, MPH, vice president of hospital quality programs for HealthGrades. “We found that 27 percent more patients of the top-performing hospitals reported that staff always explained their medications before administering them, compared to hospitals in the bottom 10 percent. Communication is clearly an important factor for patient satisfaction, but it also can be critical to ensuring positive outcomes. We commend hospitals like Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica for setting the standard for outstanding patient experience.”

Dr. John Burson, a board-certified ear, nose and throat specialist with Villa Rica ENT and chairman of Tanner Health System’s board of directors, noted that the honor was a rather exclusive one for the hospitals.

“Out of the almost 4,000 hospitals HealthGrades studied, just more than 330 in the nation earned an Outstanding Patient Experience Award—and only a dozen of those were in Georgia, and no others were in our region. You’d have to travel to Atlanta, Athens, Rome or farther to find a comparable hospital experience.”

Tanner facilities have received quality-based accolades from HealthGrades as well. The firm ranked Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton No. 1 in Georgia for overall orthopedic services for the past three years, and presented the facility with the Orthopedic Surgery Excellence Award and the Joint Replacement Excellence Award for 2012.

“Communication is key,” said Howard. “We want our patients to know that, if they feel we could be doing something differently to improve their experience, they can share their thoughts with their patient care team. And as always, completing these surveys are a great way to show us where we could improve, and to provide a comparison between Tanner and other hospitals in the nation. As it turns out, most of our patients think we stack up pretty well.”

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