Texas Health Azle receives quality award

I am very excited to let you know that Texas Health Azle has been recognized by the Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Awards program. Our hospital has received the highest award possible, the Award of Excellence. Out of 227 participating Texas hospitals, only 27 were presented with the Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Award of Excellence! The award recognizes hospitals that are active in quality improvement and have an outstanding appropriate care measure (ACM). For acute care hospitals, the ACM consists of 24 quality indicators: eight AMI, four heart failure, seven pneumonia and five surgical care measures.

To earn the Award of Excellence, a hospital had to achieve or maintain performance between 90 and 100 percent on the Appropriate Care Measure, and to have met all other awards requirements. These included passing validation of three quarters of data (quarters 1-3, 2008), having mortality scores within the projected range and submitting the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS) data.

I especially would like to thank each staff member for their personal contributions – whether it was ensuring that aspirin was given to a heart attack patient on arrival, completing smoking cessation education prior to discharge or giving prophylactic antibiotics to surgery patients, their hard work has not gone unnoticed. It is because of their collective efforts that we have been recognized for demonstrating excellence in health care quality through our improved performance on national quality measures.

Even better than the award, however, is the knowledge that we provide outstanding quality patient care. When the national quality measures of the awards program are implemented 100 percent of the time, patients’ lives are improved and may even be saved.

I am proud to be a part of this wonderful healthcare team and have a great deal of pride for what we have accomplished!