LIHU‘E — On Monday, the Wilcox Medical Center received the Healthgrades 2023 Patient Safety Excellence Award that places Wilcox among the top 10 percent of all short-term acute care hospitals nationwide, as evaluated by Healthgrades, the leading marketplace connecting patients and providers.
“On behalf of Wilcox Medical Center, we are proud to accept this national recognition of our entire team,” said Jen Chahanovich, president and CEO of Wilcox Medical Center. “Since Wilcox opened nearly 85 years ago, our top priority has been to provide the highest quality care for our community. This distinction by Healthgrades is a wonderful affirmation of our continued commitment to clinical excellence.”
During the 2019-21 study period, 164,592 potentially preventable patient safety events took place among Medicare patients in U.S. hospitals. Healthgrades said if all hospitals in the U.S. performed similarly to the 2023 Patient Safety Award recipients, an average of 95,880 patient safety events could have been avoided last year.
“Through our 2023 Patient Safety Excellence Awards, we seek to recognize hospitals that excel in providing top quality care for their patients while preventing serious injuries during hospital stays,” said Brad Bowman, MD, chief medical officer and head of data science at Healthgrades.
“We are proud to name Wilcox Medical Center as a 2023 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient, and look forward to their continued efforts to make patient safety a top priority,” Bowman said.
Healthgrades said 445 hospitals across 44 states received the 2023 Patient Safety Excellence Award, and 419 hospitals in 47 states, or the top 15 percent of eligible hospitals, received the 2023 Outstanding Patient Experience Award.
Only 83 hospitals, or 2 percent of hospitals, earned both awards.
Wilcox Medical Center is just one of two 2023 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients in Hawai‘i, the other hospital earning this recognition is the Kona Community Hospital on Hawai‘i Island that earned this distinction in 2022 and 2021.
For information on how Healthgrades measures hospital quality, and access to the complete methodology, visit Healthgrades.com.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 808-245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
