Quality of Care

Quality of Care – Our Constant Concern

At St. Elizabeth Healthcare we’re working every day to deliver the most appropriate standard of healthcare to our entire community. In fact, our pursuit of excellence is never-ending.

Together, our staff and physicians are participating every day in a system-wide quality program focused on continuous improvement of our outcomes. We monitor the care we provide you and the way we work to quickly identify and remedy problems. The result is that – at St. Elizabeth Healthcare – quality care is our constant priority.

Following a Proven Plan for Excellence

So just what do we mean when we talk about quality of care? At St. Elizabeth, we have put a lot of thought into that question and consulted with some of the world’s top experts on healthcare quality for answers.

According to the Institute of Medicine - the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences – the nation’s best healthcare organizations should be pursuing six major quality goals. These goals are part of the foundation of St. Elizabeth Healthcare’s quality improvement plan and they direct us to provide care that is:

Safe: Avoid injuries during care-giving.
Timely: Reduce time spent waiting to give or receive care.
Effective: Provide care based on the best scientific knowledge.
Efficient: Avoid waste, particularly wastes of equipment, supplies, ideas and energy.
Equitable: Provide consistent care that does not vary by gender, ethnicity, location or socio-economic status.
Patient-centered: Provide care that respects individual patient preferences, needs and values, and that which ensures that patient values guide all clinical decisions.

Quality Permeates Our Culture

But, we’ve not only got a great plan to ensure quality at St. Elizabeth Healthcare, we’ve got great execution. Everyone here is committed to excellence, starting with those at the very top of our organization.

Our board of trustees and administrative council has made excellence an expectation of the St. Elizabeth Healthcare culture. That expectation manifests itself everyday in the work and attitude of each employee, as well as the results of our care.

We know this because we are keeping close watch. In fact, mounds of data about the quality of our services are continually being collected and reported at our board, management and departmental meetings throughout our system.

Quality is integral to every associate’s work. At all levels, our staff members are working together to initiate quality-focused projects, collect and review quality data, and develop action plans to boost the level of care we provide.

In addition to all of our own internal quality program initiatives, we also rigorously follow all the quality of care requirements set by local, state and national regulatory agencies. In fact, we’re continually submitting data about the quality of our care to these organizations and you can get a firsthand look at these numbers simply going to the following websites for full reports: