SOMC is committed to becoming and remaining a high-reliability organization (HRO), with the ultimate goal of achieving zero harm to our team members and the people we serve.
Southern Ohio Medical Center was recently honored with a “A” Hospital Safety Score by The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits. Calculated under the guidance of The Leapfrog Group’s nine-member Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 26 measures of publicly available safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital’s overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries, and medical and medication errors. For a complete article please click SOMC Awarded a “A” for Patient Safety.
What is The Joint Commission?
The operation of SOMC follows guidelines of The Joint Commission, the nation’s predominant standards-setting body in health care, and SOMC has received top honors from that organization for meeting standards. The Joint Commission accredits and certifies more than 19,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. It is an independent, not-for-profit organization. Joint Commission accreditation and certification is recognized nationwide as a symbol of quality that reflects an organization’s commitment to meeting certain performance standards.
https://www.jointcommission.org/
What is Hospital Compare?
Hospital Compare was created through the efforts of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in order to help you make decisions about where you get your healthcare. Hospital Compare has information about the quality of care at over 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals across the country. By publicly displaying each hospital’s quality data, it also encourages hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide. At SOMC, we are proud of the quality that we provide to our community, and we encourage you to examine our quality results and compare us to our competitors when making decisions about your healthcare needs.
What information is available on Hospital Compare?
Hospital Compare offers a “snapshot” of quality for hospitals in your area on the following aspects of healthcare:
- Overall Hospital Rating: A summary score expressed in stars, where higher is better, across areas of quality: mortalities, safety of care, readmissions, patient experience, and timely and effective care.
- Patient Survey Rating: This is another summary score expressed as a star rating. It evaluates patients' experiences of care in the hospital, medical offices, surgery, and other settings. Examples include how well the hospital’s doctors and nurses communicate with patients, and how well they manage their patients’ pain.
- More detailed data on quality is available under the following sections:
- Timely & Effective Care: This section evaluates time-sensitive care, such as Sepsis and Emergency Department Care. There are also measures related to the safe use of opioids, appropriate use of medical imaging, follow-up timeframes for colonoscopy, etc.
- Complications and Deaths: This section includes measures for surgical complications, hospital-acquired conditions (such as infections), and deaths that occur within 30 days of hospital discharge.
- Unplanned Hospital Visits: Provides information on unplanned readmissions to the hospital for certain diagnoses and after certain surgical procedures.
- Maternal Health: Demonstrates whether the facility participates in a state or national program aimed at improving maternal and child health.
- Patient-reported Outcomes: Includes data reported from patients on functional aspects of their care experience for total hip and knee replacement surgery.
- Payment: Looks at whether Medicare spends more, less, or about the same on an episode of care at the facility.
Click here to find SOMC’s Hospital Compare Results
