Garrett Regional Medical Center (GRMC) received four out of five stars for its quality of care from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers the national Medicare health care program and works with states to administer Medicaid. GRMC was the only medical center in Western Maryland to receive four or more stars in the annual rating.
The CMS created the five-star rating system in order to help health care consumers find hospitals that provide quality care as well as to inform the public as to how their community hospital is fairing. According to www.medicare.gov, the overall hospital rating summarizes a variety of measures reflecting common conditions that hospitals treat, such as heart attacks or pneumonia. The overall hospital rating shows how well each hospital performed, on average, compared to other hospitals in the U.S.
The overall hospital rating ranges from one to five stars. The more stars, the better a hospital performed on the available quality measures. A hospital achieving four to five stars is of the highest quality. The most common overall hospital rating throughout the United States is three stars. That GRMC was again awarded four stars reflects the hard work and dedication of the hospital’s staff, says Kendra Thayer, GRMC’s Chief Operating Officer.
“Garrett Regional Medical Center has truly realized its potential in striving toward continuous improvement in all aspects of patient care,” says Ms. Thayer. “We focus on providing the best care possible for the people in our service area, which includes communities in Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. We’re pleased our hard work has garnered this recognition from CMS.”
The mission of GRMC, to treat every patient like family, has helped drive GRMC’s excellent care statistics. It is among the best hospitals in Maryland for its surgical site infection rate and rate of hospital-acquired conditions, and it has the lowest total cost of care per Medicare beneficiary in the state.
“Much is owed to the multidisciplinary teams engaged in performance improvement initiatives that we have implemented in recent years,” Ms. Thayer adds. “It is truly inspiring to see the results of the collective efforts of our entire staff and their commitment to treating each patient like family.”
To see GRMC’s score, or learn more about the CMS rating system, visit https://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html.
