GALVESTON, Texas – The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has earned a prestigious national award for superior quality and care provided to patients.
Earning five stars, the university is among a small number of academic medical centers nationwide to receive the 2017 Vizient Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Award. The award recognizes UTMB for demonstrating superior quality and safety performance as measured by the Vizient Quality and Accountability Study,
conducted annually since 2005.
The accomplishment was made possible by an institution-wide program UTMB developed and implemented to deliver quality patient care at every level.
“We implemented an initiative, Best Care, in 2016 with the stated goal to provide the Best Care to every patient, every time, and I am proud to say this award recognizes all of our hard work,” said Donna K. Sollenberger, executive vice president
and chief executive officer, UTMB Health System. “We thank our dedicated faculty, trainees, nurses and staff throughout the institution for their daily efforts that are allowing UTMB to achieve excellence in patient care. We also thank our patients
who have entrusted us with their care.”
The Best Care initiative at UTMB resulted in remarkable improvements in quantitative measures of quality and safety, leading to UTMB being named a Vizient award winner.
Recognizing the significance of the award Dr. David L. Callender, president of UTMB said, “It is an honor to see UTMB listed among other leading academic medical centers across the nation striving to provide top-quality care to all patients. We
continuously work to set new standards of health care quality and safety, and it is gratifying to see the tremendous efforts of our faculty and staff recognized in this manner.”
Twelve out of 107 academic medical centers participating in the study received the prestigious award. UTMB ranked ninth, rising from No. 76 in 2016. The academic health centers recognized, including UTMB, are:
1. Mayo Clinic
- Rochester
2. NYU Langone Health
3. Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin - Froedtert Hospital
4. Rush University Medical Center
5.
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
6. University of Utah Health
7. UC Health University of Colorado Hospital
8. Lehigh Valley Health Netwok
9.
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
10. The University of Kansas Hospital
11. Nebraska Medicine
12. Oregon Health & Science University Hospital
According to
Dr. Gulshan Sharma, vice president and chief medical and clinical innovation officer, UTMB has taken major steps to build a system of care that ensures patient-centered, timely, safe and effective treatments.
“Winning the quality leadership award shows that we are focused on being the best when it comes to patient safety and quality care,” said Sharma. “We are dedicated to continually improving the care we deliver to ensure our patients achieve
optimal health outcomes and that they are always satisfied with their patient care experience.”
The annual Vizient study measures performance based on the Institute of Medicine’s six domains of care: safety, timeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity and patient centeredness.
Vizient, the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the country, presented the awards on Sept. 14 during the 2017 Vizient Clinical Connections Summit held in Denver.