Measuring Quality

Not all healthcare facilities and physicians are alike. Differences in quality matter most when you need medical care. The doctor and medical facility you choose will have a direct impact on your care – especially when you need treatment for a serious condition or disease.

Quality is measured in many different ways. While there is no universal agreement on which method should be used, the following criteria are often cited as quality indicators:

Medical Center Accreditation
The Joint Commission (JC) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits nearly 16,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. Accreditation is recognized nationwide as a symbol of quality that reflects an organization’s commitment to meeting certain performance standards. To earn and maintain accreditation, an organization must undergo an on-site survey by a JCAHO survey team at least every three years. Our JC information is available on the JC Accreditation pages of this web site and at www.jcaho.org.

Physician Training
Board certification, or the international equivalent, means that doctors have completed specialized training that a specialty board requires. To earn board certification, physicians must have practiced for a specified period of time and then pass a difficult written and oral examination. Some physicians are also board eligible, meaning they have completed the necessary education and training, and are waiting a required period of time before taking their board exam.

Satisfied Patients
Patient satisfaction often reflects how willing doctors and nurses are to listen, answer questions and explain treatments; how much time doctors spend with patients; and if the medical center is clean and the food is good. Patient satisfaction data can predict how satisfying your experience is likely to be. Patient satisfaction information can be found on our Patient Satisfaction and Service Quality web page.

Other Sources of Health Care Quality Information

Several industry and government organizations provide information about health care quality and some have proprietary reporting tools. The information these organizations provide can help you make informed, accurate decisions about healthcare quality.

Warning: Different agencies and consumer reporting sites use different definitions, data sets, and time periods and have different (or nonexistent) ways of normalizing data for comparisons (severity adjustments).

Therefore, comparisons between sources are not “apples to apples” and comparisons within a single source have to be carefully analyzed before accurate conclusions can be made (read the fine print!).

Joint Commission (JC)
JC and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) developed a set of research-based quality indicators that are used across the nation. They have established standardized measures of quality in selected patient populations including acute myocardial infarction (AMI), community acquired pneumonia (CAP), congestive heart failure (CH), Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP), pregnancy and related conditions and surgical procedures. OSF St. Francis is currently participating in AMI, CAP, SCIP and CHF. This information can be found on our Quality Reports web page, in the JC report on OSF St. Francis that is linked to our JC Accreditation web page, and the CMS website.

Governor's Award of Excellence
OSF St. Francis Hospital & Medical Group received the 2006 Governor's Award of Excellence for efforts to enhance patient care. The award is given each year by the Michigan Peer Review Organization (MPRO). This is the sixth consecutive year the OSF Medical Group clinics in Escanaba and Gladstone have received the award and the fifth consecutive year for the Powers clinic. The group was honored for its efforts to improve services relating to diabetes care. OSF St. Francis Hospital received the award for the third consecutive year for its efforts to improve care in the Hospital setting for heart failure and in the Emergency Department setting for heart attack.