Ascension Sacred Heart Gulf has received the highest quality rating in a national study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The agency recently released its updated Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings for the nation's hospitals to make it easier for people to compare hospital quality.
Hospitals received ratings from one to five stars - with five stars being the highest score - based on how well they perform on a range of inpatient and outpatient quality measures. The overall hospital rating shows how well each hospital performed, on average, compared to other hospitals in the U.S.
For the second year in a row, Ascension Sacred Heart's 19-bed hospital in Port St. Joe was the only hospital in the region to receive the five-star rating.
Only 11 hospitals in Florida received the five-star rating and nationwide, only 9 percent of 4,586 hospitals received the top rating.
"We are honored to be recognized as one of the nation's highest quality healthcare facilities," said Roger Hall, president of Ascension Sacred Heart Gulf. "We will continue to strive to provide high-quality, personalized care to the communities we are privileged to serve."
The overall hospital rating summarizes a variety of measures, reflecting common conditions that hospitals treat, and summarizes them into a single star rating for each hospital. Measures used by CMS include: mortality, safety, readmission rates, patient satisfaction and timeliness of care.
