1515 Main Street
Highland, Illinois 62249
618-651-2600
St. Joseph’s Hospital Receives Honors for Patient Care, Disease Prevention
St. Joseph’s Hospital has been named a “Silver Star” award recipient for its care of patients with congestive heart failure.
This award is the second in recent weeks. A national healthcare group in purchasing and resource management presented the hospital with a “Best Practice” award for its work in preventing the spread of the often-in-the-news MRSA virus, or the “superbug.”
The “Silver Star” recognition, from the Illinois Foundation for Quality Health Care, reflects progress the hospital made from January 2004 to December 2006 in using practices proven to be successful in treating patients with congestive heart failure.
Deb Weiss, Director of Quality Management at St. Joseph’s, said the progress in caring for these patients is among several quality programs that “encourage the use of proven, evidence-based practices designed to improve outcomes for patients and decrease time they spend in the hospital.”
Evidence-based care is the management of a patient’s disease based on nationally recognized, acceptable practices developed by experts in health organizations, such as the American Heart Association.
These guidelines are designed to provide timely, optimal, and cost-effective care to reduce complications for patients and increase rate of survival. These recommended patient care practices are considered the gold standard in health care and are the best that current medical knowledge offers.
In the case of the hospital’s “Silver Star,” the evidence-based measurements included monitoring case records to assure that specific testing was undertaken to examine a patient’s heart function, to ascertain how regularly recommended medication was prescribed to improve heart function, to review the thoroughness of discharge instructions and to note the provision of smoking cessation advice when it was warranted.
The hospital’s success in implementing these practices was a single percentage point short of earning the even more impressive “Gold Star" award.
“We are dedicated to keeping our care current with national standards,” Weiss said, “and to assuring that as evidence-based medicine evolves with better management of important diseases, we keep our medical staff updated and facilitate their use of these practices for our patients.”
In the fall, Consorta, a health care resource management group, presented the hospital with a “Best Practice” award at an event in Chicago. The award holds up as exemplary the hospital’s work in preventing the spread of infection among patients.
It specifically notes the hospital’s practice of identifying patients considered high risk of spreading MRSA, a staph infection that often makes headlines because of its stubborn resistance to antibiotics. MRSA can be fatal.
At St. Joseph’s Hospital, high-risk patients are cared for in isolation until results of tests confirm they are not carrying the bacteria. The hospital has not had a case of a patient acquiring the bug while in its care in 21 months.
“We’re catching the infections before they can become a problem,” said Dennis Plocher, infection control practitioner and assistant lab supervisor. “This way, we’re providing the best care we can to the potentially infected patient and doing everything we can to protect every other patient in our care.”
St. Joseph’s Hospital has been named a “Silver Star” award recipient for its care of patients with congestive heart failure.
This award is the second in recent weeks. A national healthcare group in purchasing and resource management presented the hospital with a “Best Practice” award for its work in preventing the spread of the often-in-the-news MRSA virus, or the “superbug.”
The “Silver Star” recognition, from the Illinois Foundation for Quality Health Care, reflects progress the hospital made from January 2004 to December 2006 in using practices proven to be successful in treating patients with congestive heart failure.
Deb Weiss, Director of Quality Management at St. Joseph’s, said the progress in caring for these patients is among several quality programs that “encourage the use of proven, evidence-based practices designed to improve outcomes for patients and decrease time they spend in the hospital.”
Evidence-based care is the management of a patient’s disease based on nationally recognized, acceptable practices developed by experts in health organizations, such as the American Heart Association.
These guidelines are designed to provide timely, optimal, and cost-effective care to reduce complications for patients and increase rate of survival. These recommended patient care practices are considered the gold standard in health care and are the best that current medical knowledge offers.
In the case of the hospital’s “Silver Star,” the evidence-based measurements included monitoring case records to assure that specific testing was undertaken to examine a patient’s heart function, to ascertain how regularly recommended medication was prescribed to improve heart function, to review the thoroughness of discharge instructions and to note the provision of smoking cessation advice when it was warranted.
The hospital’s success in implementing these practices was a single percentage point short of earning the even more impressive “Gold Star" award.
“We are dedicated to keeping our care current with national standards,” Weiss said, “and to assuring that as evidence-based medicine evolves with better management of important diseases, we keep our medical staff updated and facilitate their use of these practices for our patients.”
In the fall, Consorta, a health care resource management group, presented the hospital with a “Best Practice” award at an event in Chicago. The award holds up as exemplary the hospital’s work in preventing the spread of infection among patients.
It specifically notes the hospital’s practice of identifying patients considered high risk of spreading MRSA, a staph infection that often makes headlines because of its stubborn resistance to antibiotics. MRSA can be fatal.
At St. Joseph’s Hospital, high-risk patients are cared for in isolation until results of tests confirm they are not carrying the bacteria. The hospital has not had a case of a patient acquiring the bug while in its care in 21 months.
“We’re catching the infections before they can become a problem,” said Dennis Plocher, infection control practitioner and assistant lab supervisor. “This way, we’re providing the best care we can to the potentially infected patient and doing everything we can to protect every other patient in our care.”