MARTINSBURG, W.Va. – Officials at West Virginia University Hospitals-East’s City Hospital announced today that the hospital has been named a 2011 Top Improver® Award winner by Press Ganey Associates, Inc.
Press Ganey currently partners with more than 10,000 health care facilities — including 50% of all U.S. hospitals — to measure and improve the quality of care that providers deliver to patients and, ultimately, to improve the overall health care experience.
The Top Improver® Award recognizes clients who have shown continuous improvement over a two-year period. City Hospital improved its patient satisfaction scores in three of the four eligible periods.
City Hospital is one of 36 Press Ganey client facilities nationwide to receive this honor, and one of 18 to receive it for improvement in patient satisfaction scores. “We are proud partners of WVUH-East’s City Hospital,” said Robert Draughon, CEO of Press Ganey. "The City Hospital team’s dedication to continuous improvement serves as a model for all.”
According to Anthony P. Zelenka, City Hospital’s chief administration officer, this award represents important recognition from the industry of the hospital’s efforts. “As an organization that adopted a total quality management philosophy in 2009, it is gratifying to achieve the level of improvement in clinical processes that merits this kind of national recognition,” he stated.
City Hospital initiated a grassroots inspired Journey in Service Excellence in 2009 to improve the healing experience for all patients and their families. Employees determined that customer service and patient satisfaction had to improve, and that they needed to hold each other accountable.
“Executive management quickly moved on the service excellence initiative by re-aligning goals and objectives, developing new evaluation processes, implementing mandatory management/staff training and adopting new performance standards for the organization,” commented Stephanie Diedericks, vice president strategic planning and services for WVUH-East.
Monthly coaching sessions and workshops for management and front line staff resulted in the development of a roadmap for successful implementation beginning with the three areas that would ultimately lead to total organizational improvement: attitude, action and accountability.
“Once we realized that we could no longer do things the way we had always done them, the transformation began,” Diedericks said, adding that front line staff began serving as the guiding force for the service excellence initiative at WVUH-East.
“We have achieved many milestones on our journey in service excellence at WVUH-East over the past three years, including City Hospital’s most recent honor of being named a recipient of Press Ganey’s 2011 Top Improver® Award,” Diedericks said.
According to Zelenka, change never comes easy and the key has been building loyalty in the program. “By engaging the minds of our employees and grabbing the hearts of our patients, we’ve been able to support WVUH-East’s mission of providing quality health services in a patient-centered environment,” he added.
Members of the Service Excellence Council are pictured with the Press Ganey 2011 Top Improver® Award. Left to right: Mary Snow, Lisa Jimenez, Stephanie Diedericks, Stephanie Harvey, and Stephanie Shirley. Not pictured: Lisa Avey, Beebe Shapiro, Val Penick, Don Breon, and Martha Mumaw.