Kindred Hospital Clear Lake Earns ScionHealth’s ‘Platinum Award’ ‒ Company’s Top Honor for Hospital Quality

Pictured at the August 8 awards presentation at Kindred Hospital Clear Lake are (left to right): Dean French, M.D., CMO, ScionHealth; Rosanna M. Moreno, COO/CCO, Kindred Hospital Clear Lake; and Angel Gradney, Market CEO, Kindred Hospital Clear Lake.

WEBSTER, Texas (August 13, 2024) – Kindred Hospital Clear Lake was honored on August 8 as one of three ScionHealth-owned hospitals to win the company’s inaugural National Quality Strategy Platinum Award ‒ its highest honor for clinical quality. ScionHealth leaders presented the award at a ceremony at Kindred Hospital Clear Lake, which is one of 92 hospitals owned by ScionHealth on campuses in 28 states. ScionHealth was created in December 2021 and launched its National Quality Strategy last year.

“We are thrilled to be a top performer among ScionHealth’s 92 hospitals and the top performer among the company’s 75 specialty hospitals,” said Angel Gradney, Market CEO of Kindred Hospital Clear Lake. “Our team at Kindred Hospital Clear Lake works tirelessly to provide exceptional outcomes and experiences to the often critically ill patients who come to us seeking hope and healing. This recognition certainly helps validate our efforts to deliver the highest quality care in the safest environment possible.” 

The ScionHealth National Quality Strategy promotes best practices and measures the success of its hospitals’ quality performance over a 12-month period. The rigorous program enables and empowers hospitals to continuously improve patient care, safety, and satisfaction with an underlying goal of zero patient harm. Platinum Award recipients Kindred Hospital Clear Lake, Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center (Hartsville, South Carolina), and Palestine Regional Medical Center (Palestine, Texas) outperformed all other ScionHealth hospitals while achieving exceptional quality performance.

“Kindred Hospital Clear Lake performed well in all of our quality domains, measures and best practices, but especially stood out in the areas of effective and safe care ‒ areas crucial to the types of patients we care for at our specialty hospitals,” said Danny Brywczynski, President of ScionHealth’s Specialty Hospital Division. “Our specialty hospitals pride themselves on outperforming the national averages on multiple quality metrics. For Clear Lake to stand out among these hospitals is quite a testament to the team and culture at that facility.”

The ScionHealth National Quality Strategy measures hospital quality over the six domains of healthcare quality established by the Institute of Medicine. Each domain features a mix of clinical metrics and best practices that include clinical protocols, training, and leadership. The more a hospital succeeds in each category, the more likely it will achieve better results in terms of patient safety, outcomes, and experiences. Here is a brief overview of each domain, including the key specialty hospital metrics that are scored:

• Effective – The hospital provides evidence-based care to all who could benefit, and refrains from providing services to those not likely to benefit, avoiding both underuse and misuse. Key ScionHealth metrics: successful discharge to home or community; mortality rate; improvement in ventilator patient mobility; ventilator liberation rate; sepsis measures; and more.
  
• Efficient – Through strong teamwork and open communication, the hospital reduces waste and allows time and resources to be optimized toward effective patient care. Key ScionHealth metrics: length-of-stay measures; antibiotic stewardship efforts; lower return to acute care rates; and more.
  
• Equitable – The hospital’s patients should have the opportunity to achieve their highest health potential, regardless of socially determined circumstances. Key ScionHealth metrics: initiatives and progress in addressing healthcare disparities.
  
• Patient-Centered – The hospital’s patients are its top priority. The hospital cares for their physical comfort and emotional well-being and respects patient and family preferences and values. By involving patients and families in care-plan development, the hospital improves healing and recovery. Key ScionHealth metrics: HCAHPS patient survey results (administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), effective implementation of foundational behaviors, bedside shift reports, rounding best practices, and more.
  
• Safe – By approaching patient safety initiatives holistically and systemically, the hospital strives to make safe care ordinary and routine. Key ScionHealth metrics: assessment of areas of harm reduction such as preventing/reducing falls, central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and C. difficile (a colon infection); improvement in safety event reporting, and related safety training.
  
• Timely – Timeliness of care is a crucial aspect of improving patient outcomes. By accurately assessing and appropriately addressing the urgency of care, the hospital strives to reduce harmful delays and minimize waste. Key ScionHealth metrics: meeting medical consultation timeframe expectations; and timely wound care assessments, primary care nurse skin assessments, and imaging, among other things.
  

“The ScionHealth National Quality Strategy is comprehensive, measurable, and challenging, as our first full-year results would indicate,” said Dr. Dean French, Chief Medical Officer at ScionHealth. “More importantly, this program is already making a meaningful difference for patients at our hospitals. We believe this blueprint for hospital quality will continue to drive improvements and best practices that elevate our care and make ScionHealth hospitals high-reliability providers and the preferred providers in the communities they serve.”