UH Geneva and Conneaut Medical Centers Earn Top Quality Ranking from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
University Hospitals Geneva and Conneaut medical centers have achieved five-star quality ratings for 2018 from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers Medicare. These are the only two hospitals in Ashtabula County to receive the highest rating from CMS. Fewer than 10 percent of the nation’s more than 4,500 hospitals achieved five stars in the CMS 2018 ratings.
Jason Glowczewski, Chief Operating Officer, UH Conneaut and Geneva medical centers, credits employees for the hospitals’ success. “We truly have a five-star staff of employees and physicians who have worked hard to maintain our high standards. I am extremely proud of our team and their culture of quality and compassion,” he says.
Ratings are based on seven measures: mortality, safety, patient experience, readmission rates, effectiveness of care, timeliness of care and efficient use of medical imaging. The criteria are applied equally to all hospitals surveyed, independent of size or type of facility.
“Achieving the top rating for both hospitals demonstrates our ongoing commitment to delivering the highest-quality, safest care to Ashtabula County residents,” says Lorraine McLaughlin, Chair of the Board of Directors, UH Conneaut and Geneva medical centers. “The ratings also reflect our continued investment in facilities and staff to ensure we provide an outstanding patient experience.”
Recent examples of the medical centers’ expansion and investment include the addition of gynecology, sports medicine, pain management and vascular surgery specialists to the medical staffs; construction of a new Intensive Care Unit and lab at UH Conneaut Medical Center; and the expanded UH Seidman Cancer Center at UH Geneva Medical Center that opened in June 2017.
CMS introduced the Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings in July 2016. Ratings are updated annually in December, based on Medicare data for the preceding year.