How We Measure Up
See our 2009 HealthGrades report card ads
Our commitment to you starts with our commitment to quality and safety.
Your safety and our pursuit of the highest quality outcomes for all our patients are the guiding principles of Southcoast Hospitals.
We take pride in the excellent outcomes we achieve for our patients.
We also know you have a choice when it comes to selecting a doctor and a hospital. And when making that choice, quality should be one of many considerations you make.
The quality measures we report here are some of the things we use internally to assess quality and make improvements. Our ongoing performance improvement initiatives help us deliver better health care to you and your family.
What Hospital Quality Measures Mean
Hospital quality measures are among many factors you should consider when choosing a hospital.
By reporting this data, we hope to provide you with the confidence and peace of mind that comes with knowing your hospital and its physicians, nurses and staff are committed to constantly improving to assure you the very best outcomes possible.
How to Compare Measures
As more health care quality information is made available by hospitals, governmental agencies and other organizations, it is important to make sure you are comparing similar measures.
In some cases, measures may sound the same, but it could be like comparing apples and oranges.
Here are a few tips to make sure the quality measures you are comparing are actually the same:
- Do the measures use the same scale (such as infections per 1,000 patients)?
- Do the measures use numbers or percentages?
- Do the measures combine scores (such as "excellent," "very good" and "good") or just report a single score (such as "excellent")?
When comparing institutions, always make sure the measures are reported the same way.
Where You Can Find More Data
The quality measures in this section are self reported by Southcoast. There are a number of external Websites that provide data on hospitals, including Southcoast. We have put together a list to make it easy for you.
External Websites that provide hospital quality data
Advice for You, Our Patient
You can help your caregivers make your hospital stay is as safe as possible. Here is some advice for patients and families to help prevent catching a potentially lethal germ while in the hospital.
Advice on what you can do to protect yourself
Southcoast Quality in the News
October 15, 2008 | Area hospitals' heart care rated among best in U.S.
October 14, 2008 | Southcoast Hospitals Group ranks high in heart healthcare
April 29, 2008 | Hospital scorecard to empower patients
IHI 5 Million Lives
Southcoast Hospitals is participating in The 5 Million Lives Campaign, a voluntary initiative to protect patients from five million incidents of medical harm over the next two years (through December 2008).
The 5 Million Lives Campaign operates on the fundamental principle for health care providers: "primum non nocere" — first, do no harm.
The campaign seeks to eliminate hospital-acquired infections, adverse drug events, surgical errors, pressure sores and other complications.
Based on data collected over several years from multiple partner institutions, IHI estimates that nearly 15 million instances of medical harm occur in the US each year — a rate of over 40,000 per day. This is a burden larger than most patients and professionals, and even some health care researchers, realize.
Southcoast is proud to participate in the IHI 5 Million Lives Campaign.
Learn more about the IHI 5 Million Lives Campaign
Contact Us
Quality and patient safety is extremely important to Southcoast Hospitals. Let us know whether this information is helpful or how we could better serve you.
Use our Feedback Form to contact us if you have any questions or comments.
