St. David's Georgetown Hospital News

St. David's HealthCare Hospitals Reaccredited as Chest Pain Centers

reedsmith — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:34:07 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas-Several St. David's HealthCare facilities recently received Chest Pain Center Accreditations-all of which were reaccreditations-from the Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC). The SCPC is an international, not-for-profit organization that focuses on transforming cardiovascular care by assisting facilities in their efforts to create communities of excellence that bring together quality, cost and patient satisfaction.

St. David's Medical Center, St. David's North Austin Medical Center and St. David's South Austin Medical Center received these reaccreditations by the SCPC. St. David's Round Rock Medical Center is scheduled to receive its reaccreditation in May 2012. The Heart Hospital of Austin and St. David's Georgetown Hospital received their reaccreditation in 2011 and 2010, respectively.

"By maintaining our chest pain center accreditations, we continue to enhance the quality of care for cardiac patients and demonstrate our commitment to higher standards," Thomas W. Knight, M.D., chief medical officer at St. David's HealthCare, said. "We are pleased to continue to offer exceptional chest pain care for all patients at St. David's HealthCare facilities."

Chest Pain Center Accreditation is awarded to facilities that have achieved a higher level of expertise in dealing with patients who arrive with symptoms of a heart attack. These facilities emphasize the importance of standardized diagnostic and treatment programs that provide more efficient and effective evaluation, as well as more appropriate and rapid treatment of patients with chest pain and other heart attack symptoms. They also serve as a point of entry into the health care system to evaluate and treat other medical problems, and they help to promote a healthier lifestyle in an attempt to reduce the risk factors for heart attack.

To become an Accredited Chest Pain Center, these hospitals engaged in rigorous evaluation by SCPC for its ability to assess, diagnose and treat patients who may be experiencing a heart attack. This means that processes are in place to meet strict criteria aimed at:

Reducing the time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis and treatment
Treating patients more quickly during the critical window of time when the integrity of the heart muscle can be preserved
Monitoring patients when it is not certain that they are having a heart attack to ensure that they are not sent home too quickly or needlessly admitted to the hospital

St. David's HealthCare
With more than 60 sites across Central Texas, St. David's HealthCare includes seven of the area's leading hospitals and is one of the largest health systems in Texas. Known for compassionate, high-quality care, the organization has been recognized with the Texas Award for Performance Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the State of Texas based upon world-class quality measures. In January 2012, St. David's HealthCare was recognized as one of the top 15 health systems in the U.S. by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare. In April 2012, three of the system's hospitals-St. David's Medical Center, St. David's North Austin Medical Center and St. David's Round Rock Medical Center-were named to the list of 100 top hospitals in the U.S. by Thomson Reuters. Perennially ranked as the top Austin-area employer among large companies by the Austin Business Journal's annual "Best Places to Work" survey, St.�David's HealthCare is the third-largest private employer in the Austin area, with approximately 7,500 employees. For more information, please visit StDavids.com.
About the Society of Chest Pain Centers
The Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC) is an international not-for-profit organization whose mission is to transform cardiovascular care by assisting facilities in their effort to create communities of excellence that bring together quality, cost and patient satisfaction. As the only cross-specialty Society, SCPC provides the support needed for hospital systems to effectively bridge existing gaps in treatment by providing the tools, education and support necessary to successfully navigate the changing face of healthcare. For more information on SCPC, accreditation and certification opportunities, visit www.scpcp.org, or call toll free 1-877-271-4176.

St. David's Georgetown Hospital Included in Nation's 100 Top Hospitals By�Thomson Reuters as a St. David's Medical Center Facility?

reedsmith — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:13:26 GMT

GEORGETOWN, TEXAS-On April 16, 2012, St. David's Georgetown Hospital, a St. David's Medical Center Facility, was included in the nation's 100 Top Hospitals� by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of health care. The hospital was included in the list as a campus of St. David's Medical Center, which received the designation for the third consecutive year. This is the first year the Georgetown campus' quality data was included in Thomson Reuters' evaluation of St. David's Medical Center for the award.

The award recognizes hospitals that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, patient satisfaction, financial performance and operational efficiency, among others.

"We are honored that St. David's Georgetown Hospital was included as one of the 100 Top Hospitals in the country," Hugh Brown, chief executive officer of St. David's Georgetown Hospital, said. "This recognition helps establish us as a national center of excellence, and it is a testament to our entire hospital team that provides the highest quality of care for our patients."

Thomson Reuters' annual study evaluates hospitals on measures of overall organization performance, including patient care, operational efficiency and financial stability. It compares hospitals with other facilities similar in size and teaching status.

"I want to personally congratulate the team in Georgetown for being a part of Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals," Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals program at Thomson Reuters, said. "Their efforts, combined with those of the other hospitals on this list, help raise the bar for quality patient care, not only in Texas, but also across the nation."

By being included in this recognition, St. David's Georgetown Hospital demonstrates that high-quality patient outcomes can be achieved while improving efficiency. According to the organization, if all hospitals performed at the same level as the 100 Top Hospitals award winners (based on analysis of Medicare inpatients over one year):

More than 186,000 additional patients would survive each year.
Approximately 56,000 patient complications would be avoided annually.
The average patient stay would decrease by nearly half a day.
More than $4.3 billion could be saved.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals study evaluates performance in the following 10 areas to determine the 100 Top Hospitals:

Risk-adjusted mortality index (in-hospital)
Risk-adjusted complications index
Risk-adjusted patient safety index
Core measures mean percent
30-day risk-adjusted mortality rate for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure and pneumonia
30-day risk-adjusted readmission rate for AMI, heart failure and pneumonia
Severity-adjusted average length of stay
Case mix- and wage-adjusted inpatient expense per discharge
Profitability (adjusted operating profit margin)
HCAHPS score (patient rating of overall hospital performance)

The winning hospitals were announced in the April 16 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine. Please visit www.100TopHospitals.com for more information on the award and 100 Top Hospitals research.

St. David's Georgetown Hospital
St. David's Georgetown Hospital, located in Georgetown at 2000 Scenic Drive, is part of St. David's HealthCare, one of the largest health systems in Texas, which was recognized as one of the top 15 health systems in the U.S. by Thomson Reuters in January 2012. St. David's Georgetown Hospital is an acute care hospital with a range of services, including a 24-hour emergency department with a level IV trauma center, Certified Chest Pain Center, intensive care unit, inpatient and outpatient surgery, acute inpatient rehabilitation and outpatient therapy, and maternity and newborn services with mother-baby couplet care close to home for Georgetown families. St. David's Georgetown Hospital is a St. David's Medical Center facility. For more information, please visit�StDavids.com.

St. David's HealthCare Names Chief Medical Officer

korr — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:00:00 GMT

AUSTIN, Texas-St. David's HealthCare announced today the addition of Thomas W. Knight, M.D., to its leadership team as chief medical officer. Knight will lead the clinical and quality initiatives that support the provision of consistent clinical performance and practice standards in St. David's HealthCare's seven hospitals and other sites across Central Texas.

For the past several years, Knight has served as the chief quality officer at The Methodist Hospital System in Houston. In that role, he led the system to achieve numerous national quality awards and rankings. In addition, Knight was CEO and president of Methodist Physicians Alliance for Quality, a collaborative effort among more than 800 physicians to deliver excellence in healthcare, patient satisfaction and outcomes. He also served as an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

"Dr. Knight is uniquely qualified to serve as our new chief medical officer," David Huffstutler, president and chief executive officer of St. David's HealthCare, said. "His extensive clinical background, combined with his proven history developing and implementing quality initiatives and his successful track record integrating physicians with health systems, makes him an ideal fit for St. David's HealthCare."

Before joining The Methodist Hospital System, Knight served as vice president of quality for California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, Calif. In that role, he oversaw quality improvement, outcomes management, case management, JCAHO accreditation, and patient education for the four-campus system with direct reports of approximately 180 full-time employees, among others.

Prior to that, Knight was the medical director of quality and disease management for Forsyth Medical Group, an organization of 250 employed physicians across 31 sites in Winston-Salem, N.C. During his tenure, the physician group received national attention for diabetes, heart and stroke programs and was chosen as one of 12 groups in the nation to participate in the large group demonstration project with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In addition to other prior roles, Knight also served as the chief medical officer of Ochsner Health Plan, a more than 20,000-member-group model HMO.

Knight has served as a surveyor with the National Committee for Quality Assurance since 1991 and as a member of their Review Oversight Committee since 2000.

Knight earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physical therapy from Texas Woman's University in Houston. He graduated from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston in 1983 and went on to complete his internal medicine residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is board certified in internal medicine by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

St. David's HealthCare
With more than 60 sites across Central Texas, St. David's HealthCare includes seven of the area's leading hospitals and is one of the largest health systems in Texas. Known for compassionate, high-quality care, the organization has been recognized with the Texas Award for Performance Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the State of Texas based upon world-class quality measures. In January 2012, St. David's HealthCare was recognized as one of the top 15 health systems in the U.S. by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare. Ranked as one of the Top Workplaces in 2010 by the Austin American-Statesman-and perennially ranked as the top Austin-area employer among large companies by the Austin Business Journal's annual "Best Places to Work" survey-St. David's HealthCare is the third-largest private employer in the Austin area, with approximately 7,500 employees. For more information, please visit StDavids.com.

St. David's HealthCare Named Among the Top 15 Health Systems in the Country by Thomson Reuters

reedsmith — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:18:04 GMT

Thomson Reuters Announces Highest Performing Hospital SystemsThat Improve Quality, Have Lower 30-Day Mortality Rate

AUSTIN, Texas-Today, St. David's HealthCare, along with two El Paso-based hospitals, which together make up the HCA Central and West Texas Division, were named among the nation's 15 top U.S. health systems by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare. The award recognizes hospital systems that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, patient satisfaction and operational efficiency, based on balanced system-wide clinical performance.

Selected from more than 300 healthcare systems across the nation, St. David's HealthCare and Las Palmas Del Sol Healthcare were among only two health systems in Texas to receive this ranking. The Thomson Reuters "15 Top Health Systems" study singled out 15 hospital systems that achieved superior clinical outcomes based on a composite score of eight measures of quality, patient perception of care and efficiency.

"We are pleased that our commitment to high-quality care is receiving national attention from such an esteemed organization as Thomson Reuters," David Huffstutler, president and chief executive officer of St. David's HealthCare, said. "The dedication of our doctors, nurses and staff to providing exceptional care to every patient every day has helped establish our system's reputation as a national center of excellence."

The following were among the key findings in the study:

Lower 30-Day Mortality Rates: 15 Top Health Systems held post-discharge 30-day mortality rates steady, while peer health systems demonstrated a significant increase in post-discharge mortality.�
Better Survival Rates: Winning hospitals had 17 percent fewer deaths than expected considering patient severity, while non-winning hospitals had 4 percent more deaths than expected.�
Fewer Complications: Patients of the winning health systems had 19 percent fewer complications.�
Shorter Hospital Stays: Patients treated in the winning system hospitals have a median average length of stay of 4.7 days, nearly half a day shorter than their peers' median of 5.1 days.
Better Patient Safety and Core Measure Adherence: Top health systems had 23 percent fewer adverse patient safety events than expected and had better adherence to core measures of care than their peers.�

U.S. health systems with two or more short-term, general, non-federal hospitals; cardiac and orthopedic hospitals; and critical access hospitals were assessed in the study. Researchers looked at eight metrics that gauge clinical quality and efficiency: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length of stay, 30-day mortality rate, 30-day readmission rate, adherence to clinical standards of care (evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), and HCAHPS patient survey score (part of a national initiative sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to measure the quality of care in hospitals).

The study relied on public data from the 2010 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review data and the CMS Hospital Compare data sets.

Researchers from the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals program have analyzed and reported on the performance of individual hospitals since 1993.

Please visit www.thomsonreuters.com for more information on the award and a full list of winners.

St. David's HealthCare
With more than 60 sites across Central Texas, St. David's HealthCare includes seven of the area's leading hospitals and is one of the largest health systems in Texas. Known for compassionate, high-quality care, the organization has been recognized with the Texas Award for Performance Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the State of Texas based upon world-class quality measures. Ranked�as one of the Top Workplaces in 2010 by the Austin American-Statesman-as�well as the top Austin-area employer among large companies at the Austin Business Journal's annual "Best Places to Work" event in�2007, 2008 and 2009-St.�David's HealthCare is the third-largest private employer in the Austin area, with more than 7,100 employees. For more information, please visit StDavids.com.

St. David's Emergency Center Opens in Pflugerville, Providing Advanced, 24-Hour Emergency Care

korr — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:08:00 GMT

Community-Wide Event Will Allow Residents To Tour Facility, Learn About Services

AUSTIN, Texas-On Dec. 6, 2011, St. David's Emergency Center will begin treating patients with medical emergencies in and around the City of Pflugerville. St. David's Emergency Center, located in the Stone Hill Town Center at the southwest corner of Texas 130 and Texas 45, will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

St. David's Emergency Center is a full-service emergency department without inpatient facilities. St. David's Emergency Center will serve as an extension of St. David's North Austin Medical Center and was designed to meet the growing need for medical services in Pflugerville. Patients requiring inpatient care will be transported from the emergency center to area hospitals.

"St. David's North Austin Medical Center is a leader in providing exceptional health care to patients in Central Texas, and we are pleased to open this emergency center in Pflugerville as an extension of our hospital," Allen Harrison, chief executive officer of St. David's North Austin Medical Center, said. "St. David's Emergency Center provides that same level of care and expertise to the residents of Pflugerville, in a convenient location, closer to home."

St. David's Emergency Center is expected to treat 12,500 patients during its first year. By 2016, that number will increase to approximately 45,800 patients per year.

Twenty-seven employees will be hired during the emergency center's first year of operation, including a mixture of nursing personnel, imaging personnel, laboratory personnel, registration staff and support personnel. During its fifth year of operation, it will likely employ a total of approximately 35 clinical and support staff members.

St. David's Emergency Center features 12 treatment beds, advanced testing capabilities, including radiological testing and a medical lab, and will be staffed by board-certified emergency medicine physicians affiliated with St. David's HealthCare.

St. David's Emergency Center will hold a community-wide event to celebrate the grand opening of the center on Saturday, Dec. 3, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The free event will allow residents of Pflugerville and surrounding areas to tour the new emergency center and learn more about the medical services it offers. Free health screenings will be available, including blood typing, blood pressure screenings and glucose testing, as well as finger printing and radiation education to improve patient safety. The event will also feature food, games, a photo opportunity with Santa and other fun activities for children. The facility will also serve as a Pflugerville Blue Santa drop-off site during the holidays.

St. David's HealthCare opened Central Texas' first emergency center earlier this year in Bee Cave.

St. David's North Austin Medical Center
St. David's North Austin Medical Center, located at 12221 North Mopac Expressway, is part of St. David's HealthCare, one of the largest health systems in Texas. The 332-bed multi-specialty, acute care facility is dedicated to the highest level of women's health services, including maternity and newborn care with Level I, II and III nurseries at the adjacent St. David's Women's Center of Texas, as well as a 24-hour emergency department, the Texas Institute for Robotic Surgery, heart and vascular center, neurology and neurosurgery, a kidney transplant program, inpatient and outpatient surgery, and acute inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, among many others. For more information, please visit StDavids.com.