In the News

Valley Baptist Awarded for Excellent Customer Service

Valley Baptist Health System has received three national awards for pediatric and emergency care.

Valley Baptist representatives accepting awards at the National PRC awards ceremony in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville has been named as a 5-Star hospital in Pediatrics and a 4-Star Customer Service hospital in Emergency Care for 2005 by Professional Research Consultants (PRC), a national healthcare marketing research company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska.

In addition, Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen has received a national 4-star Customer Service Award for Emergency Care from PRC.

The awards were presented to Valley Baptist at an awards dinner held in Scottsdale, Arizona June 6. Hospital leaders from across the United States gathered to participate in the 2005 PRC Client Education Conference.

“The 4-Star rating received by our Emergency Department and the 5-Star rating by our Pediatrics Unit demonstrate the level of care we deliver here at Valley Baptist,” said Jim Wesson, Chief Executive Officer for VBMC-Brownsville. “These scores are testimony to an integrated team effort at VBMC-Brownsville.”

Sherry Russo, RN, Administrative Director of Nursing for Emergency and Trauma Services at VBMC-Harlingen, said that teamwork is what makes the difference at Valley Baptist. “This award is the result of teamwork between all the physicians and the entire nursing team,” Ms. Russo said. “We all strive to do our best to get patients through the Emergency Department and to deliver the best possible care to each and every patient.”

This year’s award, based on 2004 data, is one of several national awards that have been received by VBMC-Harlingen’s Emergency Dept. in recent years. The awards have been one very visible result of improved turn-around times in the Valley Baptist Emergency Dept. which have been achieved through a process improvement program called Six Sigma.

The 5-Star designation is given annually to healthcare facilities that score in the top 10 percent of the inpatient national client database for the prior calendar year. The award is based on the percentage of patients who rate the facility as “excellent” for overall quality of care.

The 4-Star designation is given to healthcare facilities that score in the top 25 percent nationally.

Patient satisfaction research is conducted to obtain the opinions of the patients at Valley Baptist. Patients are contacted by telephone for a confidential interview to assess their perceptions of patient care. The research findings are then presented to the hospital to use in continuous improvement and enhancement of patient satisfaction.

“Valley Baptist has received these awards for extraordinary efforts that result in putting the care back in healthcare,” said Joe M. Inguanzo, Ph.D., President and CEO of PRC. “We’re delighted to work with such an excellent group of healthcare organizations, and Valley Baptist is certainly at the top of the list.”

Professional Research Consultants is in its 25th year of providing market research for hospitals across the United States.