ST. MARYS, Georgia: Aug. 12, 2011 – The Southeast Georgia Health
System Camden Campus in St. Marys has been named to the Georgia Hospital
Association’s (GHA) Partnership for Health and Accountability (PHA)
Quality Honor Roll. The Camden Campus is one of 61 hospitals in Georgia
to be placed in the Presidential category, one of the highest on the list.
The honor roll is based on clinical data provided by the federal Centers
for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS), which administers the nation’s
Medicare and Medicaid programs. The data was collected from January 2010
to December 2010.
“This is a great accomplishment for the Camden Campus,” said
Joseph Parker, president of GHA. “This recognition further underscores
the commitment of the Camden Campus team to ensuring that every patient
receives the best, most effective health care possible.”
All acute care hospitals are required to submit care data to CMS. This
data details how well a hospital’s caregivers adhere to a list of
eight Appropriate Care Measures (ACM), which are the clinical processes
of care that are known to be the most effective methods of treatment for
patients who have suffered heart attacks, heart failure or pneumonia.
The ACM is a composite measure that determines whether or not a patient
received the right care at the right time.
For instance, a recommended treatment to help prevent a heart attack is
to take aspirin either before or upon arrival at the hospital, as well
as at discharge. A suggested treatment for pneumonia is to administer
an antibiotic within six hours of a patient’s arrival. A hospital’s
adherence to these recommended clinical practices usually leads to better outcomes.
“It is our mission to ensure that each of our patients receives the
right care at the right time and this recognition validates this,”
said Howard W. Sepp Jr., FACHE, vice president/administrator, of the Camden
Campus. “This honor is a tribute to the hard work and dedication
of our team members and physicians who are constantly working to make
excellent care even better.”