(DALLAS, Aug. 24) – Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth, Baylor Medical Center at Garland, Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano, and Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas have received the Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Achievement Award from TMF® Health Quality Institute, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Texas.
TMF established the awards program in partnership with The Texas Hospital Association, Texas Medical Association, Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals and Texas Osteopathic Medical Association.
The Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Awards honor Texas 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.
The awards acknowledge hospitals for improving care related to acute myocardial infarction or AMI (heart attack), heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care. These clinical areas have been designated as national health care priorities by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and The Joint Commission, an independent nonprofit, standards-setting and accrediting body in health care.
The awards recognize hospitals that are active in quality improvement and have made the required improvement on a composite scoring system, called the 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. Critical access hospitals used an ACM score based on 11 quality indicators: four heart failure and seven pneumonia measures. These CMS/Joint Commission priority areas were targeted because they measure care for common, serious health conditions that affect all adult patients.
Out of 227 participating Texas hospitals, 27 have met the criteria and were presented with the Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Award of Excellence and 66 were presented with the Quality Improvement Achievement Award.
To qualify for the Quality Improvement Achievement Award, a hospital had to attain a minimum 80 percent for the Appropriate Care Measure and to have met all other awards requirements.