Connally Memorial Medical Center Recognized with Gold Quality Improvement Award

Connally Memorial Medical Center has received the TMF Hospital Quality Improvement Gold Award and TMF Home Health Quality Improvement Gold Award, a quality improvement award from TMF® Health Quality Institute in partnership with the Arkansas Hospital Association, Oklahoma Hospital Association, Oklahoma State Office of Rural Health, Texas Hospital Association and the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals. The award recognizes Connally Memorial Medical Center’s efforts to improve patient outcomes on select national quality measures. Out of all 557 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS or Acute Care) Hospitals and 188 Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, 51 earned the TMF Hospital Quality Improvement Gold Award. The Silver Award went to 50 hospitals, and 51 hospitals earned the Bronze Award.

The TMF Hospital Quality Improvement Award honors hospitals that are performing quality initiatives aimed at improving outcomes in patient care by recognizing those hospitals that have improved their performance on specific national quality measures.

For the award evaluation, IPPS hospitals were separated into two groups – those eligible for value-based purchasing (VBP) and Critical Access Hospitals, or those not eligible for VBP, as defined by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

To earn the Gold Award, a Prospective Payment System VBP-eligible hospital had to meet CY 2016 CMS VBP achievement thresholds for 85 percent of the eligible measures and was required to meet the CY 2016 achievement thresholds for at least 75 percent of submitted chart-abstracted Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR) measures. In addition, Gold Award winners had to demonstrate 15-percent relative improvement in reduction of readmissions during the award evaluation period, or an absolute readmissions rate of 5 percent or less.

“We are proud to have achieved this recognition. Our success illustrates our commitment to patient safety and to delivering quality health care,” said Bob Gillespie, CEO. “It was a significant amount of work, but well worth it because it was the right thing to do for our patients.”

“TMF is proud to recognize these hospitals for promoting quality improvement activities and their senior management for promoting a quality culture,” said Tom Manley, CEO of TMF Health Quality Institute. “Quality improvement is a complex and demanding process, and we thank Connally Memorial Medical Center for their commitment to improving the health of patients and the efficiency of health care.”

“I congratulate all of the team members whose hard worked helped Connally Memorial Medical Center achieve this outstanding level of quality performance,” said Gillespie.

“Proven standards of care can save lives,” said Valerie Vick, MSN, RN Quality Director. “We will continue to enhance our quality improvement efforts through our collaboration with partners and with TMF Health Quality Institute to ensure that every person gets the right care at the right time, every time.”

For more information on the awards program, visit the TMF Health Quality Institute awards website at https://award.tmf.org.

For more information, contact Valerie Vick, MSN, RN Quality Director at 830-393-1590 or vvick@connallymmc.org.