U-M Health System Honored by American Hospital Association for High Quality Care and Pati...( Named as sole finalist for the AH...),Health

Named as sole finalist for the AHA-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize

ANN ARBOR, Mich., July 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The doctors, nurses and other health professionals of the University of Michigan Health System provide some of the highest-quality health care in the country -- and some of the safest, too. That's according to the American Hospital Association, which today announced that UMHS is this year's lone finalist for a major annual award.

U-M comes second only to another Michigan hospital, Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, in the seventh annual national competition.

The AHA-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize, as it is called, recognizes hospitals that have made the greatest strides toward fulfilling six quality and safety goals laid out by the prestigious Institute of Medicine: that health care should be safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable.

To compete for the prize, hospitals complete a rigorous self-nomination application, and then a small number are selected to receive site visits from the prize judges.

Doug Strong, the director and CEO of the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers, will accept the finalist recognition, and its $12,500 prize, today in San Diego.

"This is very good for us, and for all academic medical centers, to be seen at the upper-most level of what it means to be a quality organization," he says. "The judges were very impressed, and perhaps surprised, at how well -- in our very large, complex, multi-mission environment -- we were able to demonstrate that we provide high-quality care amidst all of the complexity."

He notes that quality and safety in health care require not only the best-trained clinical teams, and latest technology and techniques, but also attention to the entire patient experience, and a concerted effort to reduce of waste and the potential for errors.

Darrell Campbell, M.D., the chief of clinical affairs for UMHS, adds, "Our g
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