Five Emory hospitals have been named to the Georgia Hospital Association’s (GHA) Partnership for Health and Accountability (PHA) Core Measures Honor Roll.

Emory University Hospital and Emory University Hospital Midtown have placed on GHA’s updated Core Measures Honor Roll as two of only 20 hospitals in Georgia to be placed in the "Presidential" category. Emory Johns Creek Hospital and Emory’s Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital were named to the Honor Roll in the "Trustees" category. Further, Emory Adventist Hospital, jointly owned with Adventist Health System, was named to the “Chairman’s” category.

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 July 2010 to June 2011.

 "This recognition by the Georgia Hospital Association certainly validates our efforts to provide the highest quality clinical care, backed by outstanding service and groundbreaking research," says Emory Healthcare President and CEO John T. Fox. "All of Emory Healthcare shares this honor, and we will use it as a measuring stick to steadily improve our performance as part of the promise we make each day to our patients and their loved ones."   

"This is a great accomplishment for Emory Healthcare and its hospitals," said Joseph Parker, president of GHA. "This recognition further underscores the commitment of the physicians, nurses and staff at Emory University Hospital, Emory Johns Creek, Emory University Hospital Midtown, Wesley Woods Hospital, and Emory Adventist Hospital to ensuring that every patient receives the best, most effective health care possible."

Hospitals are required to submit care data to CMS, which details how well a hospital’s caregivers adhere to a list of Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) core measures. These measures are the clinical processes of care that are known to be the most effective methods of treatment for surgical patients and patients who have suffered heart attacks, pneumonia and heart failure.

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 four hours of a patient’s arrival. It is recommended that surgery patients are given an antibiotic one hour prior to surgery to prevent infection. The VBP core measure is a composite measure that determines whether or not a patient received the right care at the right time. A hospital’s adherence to these recommended clinical practices usually leads to better outcomes.

The Partnership for Health and Accountability, formed in January 2000 and sponsored by the Georgia Hospital Association, is a unique statewide collaborative that brings together health care providers with community agencies and individuals to achieve healthy communities. PHA includes representation from groups like hospitals, physicians, state health officials, legislators and businesses.