News
Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center Receives Press Ganey Summit Award
SANTA CRUZ, Calif., November 25, 2008 - Press Ganey Associates, Inc. recently named Sutter Maternity and Surgery Center (SMSC) a 2008 Summit Award Winner for top industry performance. The Summit Award recognizes top performing facilities across the country that sustain the highest level (95th percentile or above) in Press Ganey’s independent quality care measures for three or more consecutive years. The Press Ganey Summit Award is the health care satisfaction industry’s most coveted symbol of achievement bestowed annually during their National Client Conference in Grapevine, Texas.
According to Jacci Sterling, SMSC’s assistant administrator, chief nursing officer and perinatal director, the award was as much a result of SMSC’s culture as its specific policies and practices. New hires and all staff are coached in Patient/Family Centered Care principles that teach the importance of patients’ perception of quality and care and gives them the tools to handle conflicts.
“We know that employee satisfaction goes hand in hand with patient satisfaction,” Sterling says. “And we have a very satisfied staff as is shown in annual surveys. We truly believe that patient satisfaction must be an institutional goal that is modeled from top management down and included as a performance expectation for the staff.”
SMSC also maintains some environmental choices to promote healing and caring, including:
- No overhead paging, except for codes.
- Twenty-four hour room service for all patient meals, no food tray lines.
- “Guest Services” staff are members of the Patient Centered Health Care Team who welcome patients, clean rooms, and deliver meals.
Press Ganey currently partners with more than 7,000 health care facilities—including over 40 percent of U.S. hospitals—to measure and improve the quality of their care. The company’s databases are the largest in the industry, and allow facilities nationwide to benchmark their results against peer organizations. For more information, go to www.pressganey.com.
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About the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center
The Palo Alto Medical Foundation for Health Care, Research and Education is a not-for-profit health care organization that is a pioneer in the multispecialty group practice of medicine. The Santa Cruz region of PAMF provides care through three local facilities: Santa Cruz Medical Clinic, Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center and the VNA of Santa Cruz County. The region also includes the Santa Cruz Medical Foundation, which provides Santa Cruz County residents with general health care, family practice, urgent care, primary care and health care specialists. The 30-bed Sutter Maternity and Surgery Center offers state-of-the-art perinatal and medical/surgical services combining the luxury of a fine hotel with the safety and security of a licensed accredited hospital. VNA of Santa Cruz County, a bilingual/bicultural organization, provides quality, compassionate, skilled care to homebound patients throughout Santa Cruz County. PAMF is part of the Sutter Health family of not-for-profit physician organizations and hospitals that share resources and expertise to advance health care quality. Serving more than 100 communities in Northern California, Sutter Health is a regional leader in cardiac care as well as care of women and children, and is a pioneer in advanced patient safety technology. For more information about the PAMF’s Santa Cruz region, please visit www.pamf.org.
About Sutter Health
Serving patients and their families in more than 100 Northern California cities and towns, Sutter Health doctors, hospitals and other health care service providers join resources and share expertise to advance health care quality and access. The Sutter Medical Network includes many of California’s top-performing, highest quality physician organizations as measured annually by the Integrated Healthcare Organization. Sutter-affiliated hospitals are regional leaders in cardiac care, women’s and children’s services, cancer care, orthopedics and advanced patient safety technology. For more information about the not-for-profit Sutter Health family, please visit www.sutterhealth.org.
Palo Alto Medical Foundation Contact
Mark Riley
(831) 460-6034
rileym1@pamf.org
Sutter Health Contact
Brian Hudson
(916) 286-6798 direct
(916) 286-6695 media line
cthudsb@sutterhealth.org