RAPIDS CITY, South Dakota – After two years of the lowest health and safety ratings from the federal government, Monument Health's score will rise from one star to three stars when new results are released in July. become. The hospital announced Wednesday.
“These achievements demonstrate the effectiveness of our ongoing quality efforts and we continue to strive for excellence in all aspects of patient care,” said Monument Health Quality, Safety. , Jill Theis, vice president of risk management, said in a news release.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ratings range from a low of 1 star to a high of 5 stars, based on dozens of criteria in five major health care safety and quality categories. Extends.
Monument also said the hospital in Spearfish will receive a five-star rating. Rapid City Hospital will also be upgraded from a “C” grade to a “B” grade when Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit hospital rating company, releases its latest ratings this summer. Leapfrog rates hospitals on an AF scale, with an “A” being the highest and “F” being the lowest qualification rating.
South Dakota News Watch recently reported that Monument Health's Rapid City hospital received the lowest federal quality rating in the past two years, according to CMS, which rates hospitals for safety and quality of patient care.
No other hospital within a 200-mile radius of South Dakota or Rapid City received a 1-star rating in 2023, the most recent year for which ratings were published, and 1 of 10 U.S. hospitals surveyed by CMS. Last year, only about 8% of hospitals earned a star rating.
Of the 14 hospitals in South Dakota that received a CMS quality and safety rating in 2023, none received a two-star rating, two had a three-star rating, and four had a three-star rating. Four hospitals received a star rating and four hospitals received a five-star rating. According to the CMS Care Compare website, it has a star rating.
The improvement program appears to be paying off.
Monument said that CMS ratings are often based on data from a year or even several years ago, and that the weaker CMS ratings in 2022 and 2023 reflect a broader and continuing effort to improve patient care and quality. He said that the results did not fully reflect the results of his efforts.
In 2019, Monument introduced a five-step improvement program that brought staff together daily to highlight challenges and successes, and aimed to systematically and immediately document and address issues.
“Monument Health strengthened our commitment to high-quality, safe patient care in 2019,” Tice said in the release. “While CMS's star ratings are still based on information dating back to 2019, they demonstrate progress in our quality efforts, and using the same measurements with today's data would result in higher ratings. You will get it.”
The latest CMS ratings for other state hospitals are not yet available, but a Leapfrog spokesperson said in a letter to News Watch in April that hospitals in both South Dakota and North Dakota will be announced in 2024. He pointed out that he would not receive an “A” grade in the yearly evaluation. soon.
Past evaluations revealed quality concerns
According to Monument's most recent public CMS review, updated in October 2023, the hospital was above the national average in several key areas, including stroke, heart attack and mortality rates for patients with chronic lung disease.
The hospital also scored high in terms of patients not requiring readmission for any reason after being discharged, low rates of “central line” catheter infections, and low rates of postoperative complications. The costs of many procedures were also in line with national averages.
However, Monument has shown that the state and the It was below the national average. Advanced breast screening after your first mammogram.
In its last published evaluation, Leapfrog noted that Monument performed above average in quality of nursing care, safe medication administration, organizational leadership and staff collaboration to prevent errors. .
However, Leapfrog claims that septic infections after surgery, accidental cuts and lacerations, dangerous blood clots, lacerations in surgical wounds, site infections after colon surgery, patient falls and injuries, and “serious treatable complications” Monument scored below the national average in several areas, including “Deaths from Disease.'' ”
Monument: Infection rates have fallen
Monument said in a news release that the hospital has seen safety improvements in at least three areas.
- Colorectal surgical site infections decreased by 37% in 2022, and the same infections decreased by 74% from 2022 to 2023.
- A 92% reduction in central line catheter bloodstream infections from 2022 to 2023, with two years without such infections was reported.
- Over the past nine months, hospital-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections have decreased by 75%.
“While these scores provide valuable insight, Monument Health acknowledges that they only tell part of the story. Reports from CMS and Leapfrog will continue to be delayed,” says Monument Health. Safety Executive Medical Director Jay White said in a news release. “Over time, these scores will accurately reflect the dedicated, high-quality care that Monument Health physicians and caregivers provide now and every day.”
Monument added that the health group will soon launch a public quality dashboard to inform the public of future quality improvement efforts and their results in real time.
