FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Elizabethtown, NY – March 10, 2008 – Elizabethtown Community Hospital earns recognition for several recent quality achievements including its VA Clinic and the overall care provided at the Hospital.
VA CLINIC
ECH received recognition as having one of the top VA Clinics in the nation. As published in the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center Annual Report, the VA Clinic at Elizabethtown Community Hospital, which services patients who drive from Warren, Essex, Franklin and Clinton counties, has scored among the top in the nation for the quality of patient care, as ranked by its customers. The VA Clinic was evaluated on its ability to schedule appointments quickly and meet the needs of the veterans, as well as the wait time to be seen in the office and the overall satisfaction of its patients. “Our veterans travel from across the region to come to the VA at ECH and this is proof as to the reasons why,” said Hospital Administrator and CEO Rod Boula. “We have a good team of staff in place who take care of the veterans.”
RECENT SURVEYS
Elizabethtown Community Hospital was recently surveyed by two accrediting organizations who set the standards for quality health care. By demonstrating compliance with the Joint Commission’s national standards for health care quality and safety, Elizabethtown Community Hospital has earned the Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of ApprovalTM. ECH has also been awarded annual approval from the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA), an annual inspection of the mammography program.
Both the Joint Commission and Mammography Quality Standards Act set national standards that a health care facility must meet or exceed in order to earn accreditation. It is an honor for a health care facility to receive accreditation as it shows the commitment of the organization to continually meet challenges and raise quality and safety standards to new levels.
“We did very well in both of these surveys, demonstrating our commitment to quality care and patient safety,” said Mr. Boula. “We view obtaining Joint Commission and MQSA accreditation as another step toward maintaining excellence.”
RECOGNITION OF QUALITY CARE
The hospital participates in a quality study conducted by the Island Peer Review Organization (IPRO), one of the largest and most experienced health care quality review and improvement organizations in the U.S. For the first half of 2007, ECH ranked first out of 57 participating hospitals in New York State for meeting all of the quality care guidelines for patients with heart failure, heart attacks and pneumonia. Each condition has a certain set of guidelines that must be taken and ECH achieved 100% of these requirements.
“Our Board of Directors is truly proud of this Hospital's leadership and staff that achieve these results and provide a wide range of the highest quality health services to our community, day-in and day-out,” said Ulrich Hoffmann, President of the ECH Board of Directors. “How fortunate we are.”
Elizabethtown Community Hospital (ECH), which first opened in 1926, is a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital located in Essex County, New York, part of the Adirondack Region. The Hospital has 175 employees and in 2007 treated almost 700 in-patients and nearly 4,500 emergency room patients. The Hospital has a network of primary clinics at Elizabethtown and Westport, New York. The Hospital maintains a 24-hour emergency room, houses a VA Clinic and kidney dialysis unit and has a large variety of specialty clinics staffed by board certified physicians. Other services include in and out patient physical therapy, a full-service laboratory and radiology services including mammography, bone density, CAT scans and echocardiograms. More information is available by calling (518) 873-6377 or visiting www.ech.org.
Contact: khaley@ech.org
Phone: (518) 873-6377
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