Milton Hospital, a clinical affiliate of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center providing community-based health care, announced that Press Ganey Associates, Inc. has named it a 2010 Top Improver Award Winner.

Press Ganey currently partners with more than 10,000 health care facilities—including 50% of U.S. hospitals—to measure and improve the quality of their care and their bottom line. The company’s databases are the largest in the industry, and allow facilities nationwide to benchmark their results against peer organizations. This award recognizes clients who have shown continuous improvement in their patient, physician, or employee satisfaction scores—comparing quarterly scores over two years, with improved scores in three of the four eligible periods. Milton Hospital is one of just 29 Press Ganey client facilities to receive this honor in 2010.

Since opening its newly constructed, state-of-the-art emergency facilities in 2008, Milton Hospital has taken many steps to implement patient satisfaction strategies to better serve its patients. The hospital’s “Journey to Excellence” program, which emphasizes ongoing improvement in quality and patient satisfaction, has been central to the development of successful, long-term improvement strategies, both in the ER, and throughout the hospital.

“Our first step was to establish an Emergency Department Task Force,” said Paul Paganelli, Milton Hospital’s Chief of Emergency Medicine. “This committee is an interdisciplinary team of hospital senior administrators, ED physicians and clinical staff, representatives from the laboratory, admitting, inpatient care, environmental services and other areas. Its goal is to identify problems and develop solutions by emphasizing collaboration between many areas of the hospital.”

Specifically, Milton Hospital worked aggressively to move patients out of the waiting room and into treatment rooms as soon as space becomes available. Staff offers triage at the patient’s bedside, assessing and registering a patient right in their treatment room. While emergency nurses and Harvard Faculty Physicians oversee care, a volunteer “concierge” provides non-medical services that make patients feel at ease, such as offering a blanket, water, or small comfort items as the patient recovers or awaits further treatment.

Helping to create a smooth flow for patients, Milton Hospital’s Resource Nurse acts as an Emergency Room traffic controller. “Often during peak times, it becomes more challenging for nurses to monitor every patient’s progress through treatment,” said Doris Sinkevich, Milton Hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer. “Resource Nurses are trained to create a smooth flow within the emergency department by managing daily nursing assignments, changing assignment as needed and checking for suitability of nursing skill levels.”

Since January 2009, wait times have been kept to a minimum, while volume growth has led to a $1.1 million revenue increase, as well as $1.2 million increase in outpatient care related to emergency room visits. The facility continually implements new mechanisms for delivering high quality care, recently introducing high-definition video technology to more easily secure a patient’s breathing airway in emergency situations.

“This award is a direct result of our staff’s long-term commitment to our ‘Journey to Excellence’,” said Milton Hospital President Joseph Morrissey. “We are so proud to be recognized by Press Ganey and even more proud of our staff who have made this achievement possible.”