Community Hospital Corporation (CHC) and North Texas Medical Center, a CHC-managed acute care hospital in Gainesville, proudly announced that NTMC has received the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) 5-Star Overall Rating and 5-Star Patient Survey Rating.
This ranks NTMC as one of only nine other hospitals in Texas to earn the highest mark in both categories in 2023. Zooming in for a closer comparison, NTMC is one of only two acute care, non-specialty hospitals that garnered 5-star ratings in both categories. The rating measured the community hospital’s performance on key metrics such as mortality, safety of care, readmission rates, patient experience and timely and effective care.
NTMC CEO Tom Sledge commented on CMS’ recognition of the hospital’s performance: “Achieving this overall 5-star rating signifies an amazing achievement for our hospital. This award validates that we are working together to meet our mission of providing excellent patient-centered care.”
CHC President and CEO Jim Kendrick added: “NTMC fosters a culture that openly discusses opportunities for improvement. This prestigious award serves as a real testament to the hospital’s commitment of offering the highest quality of care possible for its patients and total team effort to achieve desired results.”
Faced with strong population growth in the region, NTMC’s focus on continuous quality improvement has enabled it to meet residents’ current and future healthcare needs. “Even though we are considered rural, northern Dallas-Fort Worth’s growth is rapidly expanding our way,” Sledge said. “Our patient volumes have grown steadily over the past few years, resulting in the need to continue improving and adding services, in order to be fully prepared for the region’s growth.”
How NTMC Attained Its Top-Ranked Rural Hospital Status
NTMC made it a top priority to work closely with its staff to drive improvement in the hospital’s operations. Some of the key steps that led to NTMC receiving the award included:
● Applying a methodology to identify and prioritize areas for improvement. This allowed the hospital to concentrate its efforts on outliers that required the most attention.
● Conducting hospital leadership visits to each of the hospital’s departments regularly to ensure employee needs are met.
● Creating multidisciplinary teams to resolve issues and make sure day-to-day operations stay on track.
● Fostering a culture that encourages front-line staff to discuss any issues before they become problematic. This requires constant evaluation and monitoring to ensure the desired outcome is achieved.
● Relocating the primary care clinics to a larger and more attractive space on the hospital’s campus. As a result, NTMC expanded patient visits, averaging over 2,000 per month compared to less than 1,000 visits per month prior to the relocation.
● Implementing new electronic medical record (EMR) systems in both the hospital and clinics in the past year to help meet the ever-increasing technological needs in healthcare.
● Providing new services and hiring staff to meet the community’s healthcare needs. This included recruiting three new physicians this year, adding a rapidly growing wound care clinic and other vital medical services, and ongoing investment in technology such as plans to offer a new cardiac CT scanner this year.
