University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center again ranks #1 in the region for combined clinical care and patient satisfaction

Government rating program places hospital in 94th percentile nationally out of over 2,700 facilities

GEAUGA COUNTY – Each year, the U.S. government’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program rates American hospitals based on their performance and outcomes in two overarching areas – Clinical Processes and Patient Experience. The program focuses on reducing inappropriate health care and identifying the best-performing providers of quality care.

The latest VBP ratings, released in May, show that University Hospitals (UH) Geauga Medical Center places in the 94th percentile – 144th out of 2,729 participating hospitals across the nation. That placement improves upon the hospital’s previous outstanding national ranking of 301 in 2013.

"The VBP program considers multiple clinical measures and patient experience aspects of hospital quality,” says Jennifer Lorenz, MSN, RN, Manager, Quality & Risk Initiatives, UH Geauga Medical Center. “The Total Performance Score combines the Clinical Process results, weighted at 70 percent, and the Patient Experience results, weighted at 30 percent.”

Locally, UH Geauga Medical Center was once again the highest-ranked hospital in the region encompassing Geauga, Ashtabula, Lake, Trumbull and eastern Cuyahoga counties. “It has been proven that if hospitals follow the program’s evidence-based best practices, patients will experience the best possible quality outcomes,” says M. Steven Jones, President, UH Geauga Medical Center. “Our hospital’s high ranking means that patients coming to UH Geauga Medical Center can count on receiving timely, accurate, safe and ultimately excellent care.”

The VBP program assesses clinical measures for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia mortality rates; readmission rates; infection rates; and core protocols for acute myocardial infarction, influenza immunization, pneumonia and surgical infection prevention.

Patient experience results are based on the national, standardized Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey that asks adult patients about their experiences during a recent hospital stay. The survey is viewable at www.hcahpsonline.org. “In both performance areas, UH Geauga Medical Center scored consistently high and in fact exceeded the VBP national benchmarks as well as our own internal goals,” says Lorenz.