Beth Israel Deaconess Earns National Award

Beth Israel West Entrance exterior photo via Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Flickr

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) was named a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures by The Joint Commission, which is the leading accreditor of health care organizations in America. The award is for “exemplary performance in using evidence-based clinical processes that are shown to improve care for certain conditions.” The clinical processes focus on care for heart attack, pneumonia, surgery, children’s asthma, stroke, and venous thromboembolism, as well as inpatient psychiatric services.

BIDMC is one of 1,099 hospitals in the U.S. that earned the distinction (but the only one in Boston) for attaining and sustaining excellence in accountability measure performance on the following measure sets: heart attack care; heart failure care; pneumonia care; and surgical infection prevention and care.

The recognition is the latest award for BIDMC, which was also named the winner of the American Hospital Association-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize for its leadership and innovation in quality and safety among the nation’s hospitals. In recent weeks, the hospital was also cited with an A grade in the Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Score and designated with Gold Plus status by the American Heart Association and Stroke Association.

“We understand that what matters most to our patients is safe, effective care. That’s why BIDMC has made a commitment to accreditation and to positive patient outcomes through evidence-based care processes,” says Dr. Ken Sands, BIDMC’s chief cuality officer and senior vice president of health care quality.

According to BIDMC, this is how they choose the hospitals for recognition:

BIDMC and each of the hospitals that were named as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures must: 1) achieve cumulative performance of 95 percent or above across all reported accountability measures; 2) achieve performance of 95 percent or above on each and every reported accountability measure where there are at least 30 denominator cases; and 3) have at least one core measure set that has a composite rate of 95 percent or above, and within that measure set all applicable individual accountability measures have a performance rate of 95 percent or above.

A 95 percent score means a hospital provided an evidence-based practice 95 times out of 100 opportunities. Each accountability measure represents an evidence-based practice – examples include giving aspirin at arrival for heart attack patients, giving antibiotics one hour before surgery, or providing a home management plan of care for children with asthma.

“Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and all the Top Performer hospitals have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to quality improvement and they should be proud of their achievement,” says Dr. Mark R. Chassin, president and chief executive officer of The Joint Commission. “We have much to celebrate this year. Nearly half of our accredited hospitals have attained or nearly attained the Top Performer distinction. This truly shows that we are approaching a tipping point in hospital quality performance that will directly contribute to better health outcomes for patients.”