When making a decision you can go with your heart, you can go with your head or you can go with a combination of the two. When choosing health care, people often make decisions based on the combination of what their heart and their head tell them.
The heart helps establish a relationship with a provider who sees the patient as a fellow human being – complex, unique, special – and not just a diagnosis.
However, more and more these days, people also look for value - factoring in provider performance and pricing as part of their decision-making process.
Each member of the Blessing team strives to connect with our patients’ hearts in every interaction. Blessing caregivers believe concern for the individual and their experience is as vital to the healing process as addressing the patient’s medical situation.
For those of you who consider value and outcomes in your decision-making process, I have some news that might interest you.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released its latest ratings of the 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals across the country. The rating program is called Hospital Compare. Blessing Hospital earned a rating of four out of five stars.
The annual overall rating is based on more than 100 measures divided into seven categories:
- Mortality
- Safety of Care
- Readmission
- Patient Experience
- Effectiveness of Care
- Timeliness of Care
- Efficient Use of Medical Imaging
Of 158 Illinois providers participating in the Hospital Compare, just over 30 percent earned an overall rating of four stars. Of the 28 participating hospitals within a two hour drive of Quincy, fewer than half earned a four star overall rating.
CMS created Hospital Compare to help health care consumers make decisions about where to get their health care and to encourage hospitals to improve the quality of the care they provide.
Hospital Compare ratings are issued annually. A hospital’s rating can go up or it can go down. The Blessing team is focused on earning a five-star rating for 2021.
In the meantime, we are pleased that the hospital has been recognized by CMS as a leading healthcare organization. We hope it demonstrates to you, the consumer, that the quality of care delivered at Blessing Hospital, coupled with outstanding customer service, provides value for your health care dollar.
To review the Hospital Compare rating for yourself, go to Medicare.gov/HospitalCompare.