Quality Focus earns Cary national recognition/named one of New England’s best

    Cary Medical Center Chief Executive Officer, Kris Doody, RN, had an idea that ‘transparency’ would become a key issue as health care was becoming more consumer driven.  With this in mind the hospital CEO decided to be one of the first hospitals in the nation to put quality measurements and comparative data on the hospital’s web site. That was seven years ago and today the hospital’s focus on quality measures has gained Cary Medical Center a national spotlight as one of the nation’s leading hospitals.
    “When these national quality standards started to come out from major medical associations including physician groups, large business organizations, Medicare and others it became clear that ‘evidence based’ medicine was the right thing to do”, said Doody who has served as CEO for over a decade at Cary. “Patients have a right to know and expect that hospitals are using the very latest, best practices in the treating them.  We made an organizational wide commitment to focus on quality and the results are really benefiting our patients”.
     Doody said adjusting to more evidence based practice was not always easy but that the support of the hospital’s physicians, the perseverance of quality management staff and a commitment from nursing, clinical and support personnel helped to advance the process.  Carl Flynn, MD, Family Practice Physician and president of the hospital’s medical staff said that it took a real team effort and leadership.
    “As doctors we can sometimes develop our own way of managing patients and it isn’t always easy to change habits. The new information technology, advancing science and the hospitals willingness to invest in the right tools helped to move all of us towards a higher level of quality.” Flynn, who has also served as board chairman for the hospital also said that the success of the effort was strongly supported by the entire organization.
  “The decision to focus on quality and improved technology came right from the top,” he said.  “The board of directors was actively involved and really stepped up to the plate when it came time to make the investment in quality. This total commitment, organizational wide was crucial throughout the quality transformation.”
    Recognition of the quality effort at Cary is coming from multiple sources. Earlier this year the hospital was recognized as a national award winner in healthcare service quality for Exceeding Patient Expectations by Avatar International, the leader in measuring customer expectations in healthcare.
    Cary was also named a Tier 1 hospital by the Maine Health Management Coalition (MHMC). The MHMC is a non profit organization with some 50 members including public and private employers, hospitals, health plans, and doctors working together to measure and report on health care values. The goal of the organization is to help employers and their employees make informed decisions. In 2008 Cary was named a Tier 1 hospital for the third straight year, one of few hospitals in the state and the only hospital north of Bangor to earn such distinction.
    In November of this year Havard Pilgrim Health Care named Cary Medical Center to its  Hospital Honor Roll.  Cary was one of 37 New England hospitals and the only hospital north of Bangor to receive the honor. The award is presented to hospitals that rank among the top 25 percent of those measured nationally on a set of quality, safety and patient experience measures.
    Finally, Cary’s team of medical coders was named among the top 50 rural hospitals in the nation in the 2008 Ingenix Top 200 Coding Hospital survey. Medical Coders use complex guidelines from various national and international sources to assign numeric codes to a patient’s diagnosis and procedures. These codes are used at state, national and international levels for statistical purposes, tracking disease, identifying trends and instances of various illnesses around the world. The codes are also used for billing purposes. Coders must comply with very rigid guidelines and accuracy is critical. Galen Dickinson, Chief Financial Officer at Cary said that to receive such recognition in such a technical area demonstrates a unique commitment to quality.
    “We are so proud of our staff for this outstanding achievement,” said Dickinson who is administratively responsible for Health Information Services.  “We take the accuracy of our information and the compliance with regulation very seriously. This is all about the integrity of our operations and our coders are at the foundation of this effort.”
     Achieving such a high level of quality performance is a constant effort. Doody said that everyone is part of the quality effort at Cary and that while maintaining the highest standards is demanding it is, “the right thing to do for our patients”. Cary Medical Center’s Website features the latest in quality data through a link to ‘Hospital Compare.hhs.Gov’.