Civista in top 10 hospitals in Md. for outcome scores

St. Mary's was No. 1 in report on evaluations

Friday, May 20, 2011

Two of Southern Maryland's four hospitals rank among the top 10 in the state, according to a University of Maryland Medical System report released recently.

Using scores from evaluations done by the Chicago-based nonprofit hospital accreditation group The Joint Commission, the UMMS report last month ranked St. Mary's Hospital in Leonardtown as the No. 1 hospital in the state, followed by Civista Medical Center in La Plata at No. 6.

Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick and Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton took the 12th and 13th spots, respectively, of the 46 hospitals included in the report.

Clarence Hutton, system quality data manager for UMMS, said the report compiled the fractional scores given to all performance areas for each hospital, including treatment outcomes for heart failure, heart attack, pneumonia, childhood asthma and various surgeries.

UMMS then combined all of the scores for each hospital into a single fraction and converted them to a percentage score. St. Mary's Hospital received a 98.2 percent score; Civista got 97.7 percent; Calvert got 96.7 percent; and Southern Maryland got 96.5 percent.

"The report is generated from Quality Check," Hutton said, referring to The Joint Commission's QualityCheck.org website. "What they give you is the data."

Hutton said UMMS then compiles its own ranking using the data. The ranking does not address individual areas of expertise by each hospital, just overall performance.

"These are the standard quality measures," Pat Ercolano, vice president for quality management for UMMS said of the 27 categories from which the rankings are drawn.

Dr. Glenn Robbins, senior vice president and chief medical officer for UMMS, said that the report represents care results for about 15 percent of the state's medical population and half of its surgical population.

Bret Coons, spokesman for The Joint Commission, said that his organization provides grades of individual performance areas, but noted, "We do not rank hospitals."

According to the most recent reviews of local hospitals conducted by The Joint Commission in the last three years, Calvert has excelled at treating strokes; Civista was noted for treating pneumonia and performing hysterectomies; St. Mary's was lauded for its heart attack care and pneumonia treatment; and Southern Maryland received high marks for performing hip joint replacements and hysterectomies.

All of the local hospitals scored well in infection prevention and knee replacement surgeries, but none is graded for open heart or bypass surgeries.

Some of the data used for the report is more than two years old. Calvert last was graded by The Joint Commission in 2008, Southern Maryland in 2009 and Calvert and Civista in 2010.

"While this ranking report is a snapshot in time, St. Mary's Hospital is continually striving to focus on patient safety and quality care — it's what drives us to deliver the best care to our community every day," Holly Meyer, spokeswoman for St. Mary's Hospital, said in a statement.

"Our continuous performance improvement is reflected in being recognized by the Delmarva Foundation's Quality Award for Medicare Excellence four years in a row and five years overall."

Civista was delighted with its ranking. Chief medical officer Dr. Mark Dumais credited hospital leadership with the results, saying, "Our performance is the result of the board of directors focusing the entire organization on delivering quality health care."

Dumais said the hospital is more than a year into an affiliation with UMMS with the goal of eventually merging with the system.

jfriess@somdnews.com