The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of health care organizations in the U.S., has named two Emory hospitals Top Performers for Key Quality Measures. Emory University Hospital and Emory Johns Creek Hospital were recognized as top performers in heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care measures. Emory University Hospital at Wesley Woods (which is a part of Emory University Hospital) was recognized for its excellence in hospital-based inpatient psychiatry measures.

The hospitals were highlighted in the Joint Commission's 2014 annual report, "America's Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety."  The Top Performer program recognizes hospitals for improving performance on evidence-based interventions that increase the chances of healthy outcomes for patients with certain conditions, including: heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, surgical care, children's asthma, stroke, venous thromboembolism and perinatal care, as well as for inpatient psychiatric services and immunizations.

"Providing exceptional, quality care to our patients and their families is our top priority at Emory Healthcare," says William Bornstein, MD, PhD, chief quality officer and chief medical officer for Emory Healthcare. "Our team of nurses, physicians and other medical staff work tirelessly to provide positive patient outcomes through evidence-based care processes."

To be a Top Performer, hospitals had to meet three performance criteria based on accountability measure data, including:

• Achieving cumulative performance of 95 percent or above across all reported accountability measures;
• Achieving performance of 95 percent or above on each and every reported accountability measure where there were at least 30 denominator cases; and
• Having at least one core measure set that had a composite rate of 95 percent or above, and (within that measure set) all applicable individual accountability measures had a performance rate of 95 percent or above.

For more information about the Joint Commission's Top Performer program, visit http://www.jointcommission.org/accreditation/top_performers.aspx.