Hospital receives award

On September 7, Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital was presented with a Hospital Quality Award from Mountain-Pacific Quality Health, during the Wyoming Hospital Association Meeting and Convention in Cheyenne.

Margie Molitor, the interim CEO for HSCMH, explained Mountain-Pacific Quality Health is the quality improvement organization which is over Wyoming, Montana, Hawaii and Alaska. "They basically help all the hospitals in their areas improve their quality," she said. "That's their whole game. That's their whole purpose," which includes promoting better health, better healthcare and more efficient healthcare at the lowest possible cost.

Mountain-Pacific was formerly clinical quality driven, but they are now also looking at patient and family engagement in their care. Taken into account when deciding the award were items such as hospital-acquired infection prevention, shift huddles to get everyone on the same page, patient experience surveys and how the hospital is engaging patients and their family.

The hospital, she said, has a robust quality program. "I've been impressed with how involved their medical staff is. Our goal is to constantly improve. We have a duty to provide excellent care and to constantly push ourselves to improve."

Among the goals for the coming year, Molitor said they are going to address the employee vaccination rate for flu, and she would like to hit at least 90 percent this year. Those vaccinations help ensure a safe environment for patients, protecting them and their families, as well as hospital employees and their families.

"At the end of the day," Molitor said, "we want to make sure we're providing really high quality care, and every year striving to be better."