Eastland Memorial Hospital Ranked 4 STAR Hospital

The federal government released its first overall hospital quality rating on Wednesday, July 27, 2016. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rated 3,617 hospitals on a one- to five-star scale. Included in the ratings were Stephens Memorial Hospital in Breckenridge, Eastland Memorial Hospital in Eastland and Graham Regional Medical Center in Graham.

Medicare based the star ratings on 64 individual measures that are published on its Hospital Compare website, including death and infection rates and patient reviews.

Medicare awarded the lowest rating of one star to 129 hospitals. Medicare gave its below-average score of a two-star rating to 707 hospitals.

Nearly half the hospitals — 1,752 — including Stephens Memorial Hospital in Breckenridge received an average rating of three stars.

Eastland Memorial Hospital in Eastland and Graham Regional Medical Center in Graham scored impressive scores that placed them on the same level as some premiere medical centers that received the second-highest rating of four stars, including Stanford Health Care in California, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., New York-Presbyterian Hospital and NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia. In total, 927 hospitals received four stars.

Jamie Hayden, Chief Financial Officer of Eastland Memorial Hospital attributes the rating to their excellent staff and patient care. This is the second 4 Star rating for Eastland Memorial Hospital.

The government said in a statement that it has been using the same type of rating system for other medical facilities, such as nursing homes and dialysis centers. This rating system has been found useful to consumers and patients. 

Medicare said, "That publicly available data drives improvement, better reporting, and more open access to quality information for our Medicare beneficiaries."

Submitted by 

Jfrank Marcom