VHA Awards Recognition to SAFH     12-10-2008

VHA Inc., a national health care alliance, has recognized Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital for excellence in managing Heart Attacks, Heart Failure, Pneumonia and Surgical care. Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital is one of a select few hospitals in the state to earn recognition from VHA’s West Coast Region for performance improvement activities.

"The physicians, nursing and ancillary staff are dedicated to providing better, safer care for every patient at Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital," said Mitch Hanna, the hospital’s Chief Administrative Officer. "This is the third consecutive year that VHA has recognized our hospital for outstanding clinical outcomes, and this award represents strict adherence to evidenced based best practice guidelines. Our staff is focused on providing excellent care and customer service to our community."

The VHA West Coast Performance Awards program has four major award categories which include recognition for clinical, non-clinical, team work and individual performance--each category has many subcategories. VHA West Coast recognized hospitals for: reaching national standards for excellence in at least one of nine selected clinical areas (treating heart attacks or heart failure, treating pneumonia, surgical infection prevention, central line infection prevention, ventilator acquired pneumonia prevention, medication reconciliation and fighting drug-resistant infections); achieving high levels of performance for 12 consecutive months in at least one of those nine areas; demonstrating improvement in clinical performance, operational performance, supply chain performance, service line performance, patient satisfaction and for meeting community needs.

VHA also recognized individual administrators, physicians, nurses and work teams for their efforts to serve patients by demonstrating passion, leadership, innovation and collaboration, and for serving as an example to their peers.

VHA works with more than 1,400 hospitals nationwide, including 80 in California. VHA focuses on helping hospitals improve their supply chain performance and clinical performance, helping its members accelerate implementation of best practices and encouraging members to learn from one another through ongoing collaborative networks. Most of these networks occur at the regional level. VHA hospitals in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington work with each other on these issues through VHA’s West Coast offices in Pleasanton and El Segundo Calif.

"VHA’s focus is to help its members accelerate their improvement efforts, across all areas of the organization," said Mike Thomas, Senior Vice President / Executive Officer of VHA West Coast, "with the end result being improvements in patient outcomes and safety. By honoring these members, we are holding them out as examples that other members can follow, hopefully copying the operational and cultural changes that lead to improved patient care and efficiency."

VHA West Coast recognized Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital and other winning hospitals for their individual improvement efforts and for their use of VHA resources to drive improvements at the VHA West Coast fall conference, held Nov. 13-15 in Newport Beach, Calif.