Hospital tops among peers in ER service

Andalusia Health recently received the Operational Excellence Award as a Top Emergency Department Performer-Tier 2 among LifePoint Health for the second consecutive year.

Hospital CEO John Yanes said earning and maintaining the top spot for excellence is “very, very challenging.”

LifePoint, Andalusia Health’s parent company, manages 70 hospitals, which are grouped into three tiers based upon volume. Andalusia Health is one of 25 hospitals in Tier 2.

“The award is based on some key metrics that are consistent throughout the industry,” Yanes said. “The metrics are driven by service, quality and patient experience or satisfaction.”

The metrics include:

• The length of time from patient arrival until he or she is medically screened.
• The overall length of stay.
• The time it takes to get a patient discharged or into a patient bed.
• Clinical metrics that include a physician component.
• Patient experience. Patients are asked to rate their overall experience on a scale of 1 to 10.
• The number of patients who left without treatment.

“Some patients decide to leave without treatment either because they feel better, or think they have waited too long,” he said.

“In every single quarter in 2017, Andalusia Health was first or second without our Tier 2, but we finished out first for the year,” Yanes said. “In the first quarter of 2018, we’re right back in first place again, and we hope to be tops for three years in a row.”

Yanes said LifePoint emphasizes ER service because the emergency department frequently determines the public’s overall perception of a hospital.

Dr. Mark Griffin is Andalusia Health’s emergency medical physician. Amy Herrington is director of Cardiovascular, Critical, and Emergency Services for Andalusia Health, and Kim Carroll is the hospital’s Emergency Department manager.

“Dr. Griffin has certain expectations of physicians he brings on in the emergency department,” Yanes said. “Both Amy and then Kim Carroll have the same expectation of the nurses. They all do a great job.”