Evangelical Community Hospital lauded by patients, organization

Justin Strawser, The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa.

Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 9:59 PM 4 min read

Aug. 18—LEWISBURG — Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg is a health care provider that patients recommend to others, according to a leading hospital magazine.

Becker's Hospital Review, a publication for hospital business news and analysis for hospital and health care system executives, compiled a list of the hospitals across the nation that patients are most likely to recommend in every state using Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) data from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Evangelical is among 23 hospitals in Pennsylvania and 586 hospitals across the nation on that list.

Evangelical President/CEO Kendra Aucker said she is "extremely proud" of the workforce.

"At Evangelical, we talk all the time about making the patient first, and the patient is at the center of everything we do," Aucker said. "We built our system around that. When people say this is where they should take their families, that really means something to us."

Evangelical in July received a five-star rating for overall quality from CMS in the most recent release of their Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings. Evangelical is the only healthcare provider in the Central Susquehanna Valley region to achieve this honor. Only 18 hospitals in Pennsylvania and just 483 hospitals across the country earned this distinction.

CMS uses the overall hospital rating system to publicly report how well 4,500 U.S. hospitals perform in five key quality measures — mortality, readmission, safety of care, patient experience, and timely and effective care. The overall hospital rating ranges from 1 to 5 stars and hospitals with more stars performed better in these measures.

CMS shares 10 HCAHPS star ratings based on publicly reported HCAHPS measures. The recommended hospital star rating is based on patients' responses to the question, "Would you recommend this hospital to your friends and family?" Hospitals must have at least 100 completed HCAHPS surveys in a fourth-quarter period to be eligible for a star rating, according to Becker's.

HCAHPS is the first national, standardized, publicly-reported survey of patients' perspectives of hospital care. The HCAHPS Survey is a 29-item instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients' perceptions of their hospital experience, according to CMS.

The star rating is based on survey data collected from hospital patients from October 2021 through September 2022. The figures are from CMS' Provider Data Catalog and were released July 26, according to Becker's.

Evangelical works with Press Ganey Associates, a South Bend, Indiana-based health care company known for developing and distributing patient satisfaction surveys, to randomly distribute patient surveys. Doing so is a requirement from the state Department of Health.

Aucker said Evangelical has always had high-quality health care, but the patient experience pushed them into the five-star category. Over the last eight years, the hospital has put an emphasis on patient experience, she said.

The first step in that initiative was to create the position of director of Patient Experience. That was filled by Nichole Weber seven years ago. It is Weber's sole responsibility to ensure a patient's experience is positive, said Aucker.

"It is such a high value that you put a leader in charge of it," said Aucker. "It is the key to what has made us be the only hospital in the region to achieve this five-star status. It's our culture, how we behave with patients and each other, and that translates to a positive experience."

Weber said the experience starts the moment a patient enters the hospital. Every position matters because even if you're not taking care of a patient, the employee is supporting someone who does, she said.

Whether the employee is changing a lightbulb, cleaning a room or walking the halls, employees interact with patients, or patients see them, said Aucker.

"We treat every patient and family member as if it's the person you love the most in life," said Weber. "We want people to supply safe care in the most compassionate manner possible. People when they come here are anxious, scared and nervous, so from the moment they walk in until they leave, every interaction is important."

A pet therapy program was started. The hospital works on best practices with the clinical team. A Patient Family Advisor Council was formed. Aucker and members of the administrative team do weekly rounds where they talk to patients and discuss their care and experience.

"People might not know clinical care, but they know how you made them feel," said Aucker. "We are privileged to take care of people at their most vulnerable. You have to remember that."

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Evangelical Community Hospital lauded by patients, organization

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