Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice Named 2016 HOSPICE HONORS Recipient

Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice has been named a 2016 Hospice Honors recipient by Deyta Analytics, a division of HEALTHCAREfirst. Hospice Honors is a prestigious program that recognizes hospices providing the highest level of quality as measured from the caregiver’s point of view.

“Hospice Honors is a landmark compilation of hospices that provide the best patient and caregiver experiences,” said Bobby Robertson, president and CEO of HEALTHCAREfirst. “I am extremely proud of Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice for achieving this highest of honors and I congratulate them on their success.”

Award criteria were based on results of the Hospice CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Health Provider Services) survey for an evaluation period of April through September 2015. To be considered, hospices must have affiliated with Deyta Analytics, a division of HEALTHCAREfirst, as their survey partner and must have had at least one completed survey returned in each quarter of the evaluation period. Award recipients were identified by evaluating hospices’ performance on a set of 24 quality indicator measures. Individual hospice performance scores were aggregated from all surveys for the evaluation period and compared on a question-by-question basis to a national performance score calculated from all partnering hospices contained in Deyta Analytics’ Hospice CAHPS database of 1466 distinct hospice organizations.

Survey topics include hospice team communication, receiving timely care, getting help with symptoms, being treated with respect, feeling supported in religious/spiritual beliefs, understanding medications, and continuity of information.

Samaritan President/CEO Mary Ann Boccolini said, “This marks the third consecutive year Samaritan has qualified for this prestigious distinction. It is a wonderful validation, by the families we serve, of the outstanding care our staff and volunteers provide each day. It underscores our deep commitment to quality measures and to creating the most supportive patient/family experience.”

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About Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice
Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice is a not-for-profit, non-sectarian, independent organization accredited by The Joint Commission, a member of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and its We Honor Veterans program, created in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Samaritan is the regional leader for hospice care, palliative (comfort) medicine, grief support and counseling, and end-of-life education, research and advocacy. Samaritan serves people in Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer counties who are coping with the stresses of aging, serious illness or grief. For more information, visit www.SamaritanNJ.org .

About HEALTHCAREfirst
HEALTHCAREfirst provides cloud-based technologies and services to improve business and clinical operations for over four thousand home health and hospice providers across the United States. Based in Springfield, MO and one of the fastest growing providers of its kind, the company provides agency and clinical management software, outsourced revenue cycle management services (billing, coding and chart audits), and cloud based “Deyta” analytics and program management solutions, in any combination. HEALTHCAREfirst’s breadth of solutions offers agencies a single source to improve patient care,create operational efficiencies, increase profitability, and simplify CMS compliance. With HEALTHCAREfirst, agencies can focus on patients instead of paperwork. For more information call 800.841.6095 or visit the company’s website at www.healthcarefirst.com.