The Villages Regional Hospital, in response to recent criticism from residents, has released data that is said to reflect improvements in patient care.
Villager Don Hess wrote in a recent Opinion piece about his stay at the hospital. That piece spurred numerous Letters to the Editor from residents describing their care at TVRH.
On Tuesday, Central Florida Health released a statement in response to the criticism the organization has received and its commitment to quality healthcare. CFH is the parent company of both The Villages Regional Hospital and Leesburg Regional Medical Center.
“Today, the organization announced that it is indeed delivering on that commitment by sharing updated patient safety data as recorded by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ),” the news release said. “This data is also used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in its Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction and Inpatient Quality Reporting programs as well as by many private report cards such as U.S. News and World Report, Healthgrades and Leapfrog,” the hospital said in the news release.
U.S. News and World Report issues an annual ranking of hospitals in 16 adult specialties, including diabetes, cancer, rheumatology and more. Healthgrades evaluates and recognizes hospitals based on risk-adjusted mortality and in-hospital complications. And the Leapfrog Group, an independent not-for-profit organization, issues an annual survey on hospital safety that offers consumers the ability to make comparisons of various facilities.
The news release also touted the hospital’s success as judged by CMS criteria.
“Measures of serious complications are drawn from Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs). The overall score for serious complications, referred to as PSI-90, is comprised of 10 indicators and based on how often adult patients had certain serious, but potentially preventable, complications related to medical or surgical inpatient hospital care,” the release said.
Current data from CMS for the period that spans October 1, 2015 through June 30, 2017 indicates that The Villages Regional Hospital achieved a PSI-90 score of 0.90, representing the number of complications per 1,000 patients for the included indicators. The national rate is 1.00, which means that The Villages Regional Hospital is within normal range but better than the national average, the release said.
Overall, CMS set a goal of reducing preventable hospital-acquired conditions by 20 percent from 2014 through 2019. Once the 20 percent reduction goal is met, AHRQ projects that from 2015 through 2019 there would be 1.8 million fewer patients with hospital-acquired conditions, resulting in 53,000 fewer deaths and saving $19.1 billion in hospital costs from 2015 through 2019, the release claims.
Since 2016, the number of patients at The Villages Regional Hospital who experienced a hospital-acquired condition has been reduced by 31 percent, said Don Henderson, CFH president and chief executive officer. He said that has been accomplished through a team effort of hospital staff members who have worked tirelessly over the past few years to apply the latest data and medical knowledge to the science of improving patient safety.
“The most up-to-date PSI-90 data is a tangible demonstration of the dedication of our nursing team members, medical staff members and support departments to ensure that our patients receive safe care while at The Villages Regional Hospital,” Henderson said. “We consistently strive to meet or exceed national average guidelines for quality and safety. At the end of the day, it is imperative that we treat each and every patient as a member of our family, recognizing that our primary responsibility is to restore them back to health.”
