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Floyd Reaches Milestone in Patient Safety
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Floyd Reaches Milestone in Patient Safety

05.09.2018

Floyd Medical Center is the only hospital in Georgia that has earned the Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award™ for five consecutive years – 2014 through 2018. The award recognizes superior performance in hospitals that have prevented the occurrence of serious, potentially avoidable complications for patients during hospital stays.

During the study period, Healthgrades found that patients treated in hospitals receiving the Patient Safety Excellence Award were, on average:

  • 55.6 percent less likely to experience an accidental cut, puncture, perforation or hemorrhage during medical care, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals
  • 52.4 percent less likely to experience a collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery in or around the chest, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals
  • 62.8 percent less likely to experience catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at the hospital, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals 

  • 54.3 percent less likely to experience pressure sores or bed sores acquired in the hospital, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals

Across the nation, 458 hospitals achieved the 2018 Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award, placing them among the top 10 percent of all short-term acute care hospitals reporting patient safety data. On average, 126,342 patient safety events could have been avoided if all hospitals performed similarly to award recipients on patient safety indicators evaluated by Healthgrades.

“We commend you for achieving this award through the commitment to your core values. You should be very proud of the outstanding clinical care you are providing your community,” said Alicia Carroll, Associate Director of Quality Solutions for Healthgrades. She visited the hospital Wednesday to present the award. “This award is not specific to one department, rather it is a hospitalwide distinction. Everybody was involved,” Carroll added.

Sheila Bennett, Executive Vice President and Chief of Patient Services at Floyd, agreed. “This isn’t dependent on one group of employees,” Bennett said. “This really is the whole hospital; this really is all of us.” She pointed to the hospital leadership’s daily safety huddles and weekly reviews of issue logs as key factors in reducing errors.

Healthgrades’ goal is to empower patients to make better informed decisions about where they choose to seek medical care, Carroll said. She said about 1 million people visit the Healthgrades website every day seeking information about providers. For more information about Healthgrades and to receive information about hospital and physician quality, visit: www.Healthgrades.com/quality​