St. Joseph-Breese ER honored again; receives fifth 5-Star Customer Service Award

For the fifth consecutive year, St. Joseph's Hospital in Breese has received a 5-Star Customer Service Award in the Emergency Services category from Professional Research Consultants (PRC) of Omaha, Neb.

Five-Star designations are given annually to healthcare facilities that score in the top 10 percent-above the 90th percentile-of PRC's emergency services national client database for the prior calendar year.

The honor is based on the percentage of patients who rated emergency services at St. Joseph's in Breese, "excellent" for Overall Quality of Care, said Jacolyn M. Schlautman, hospital Executive Vice-President.

"We are proud to receive this award five consecutive years," Schlautman said. "Continually achieving this high level of patient satisfaction represents the efforts of the emergency physicians and nursing staff along with supporting staff from many areas including Cardiopulmonary, Laboratory, Medical Imaging, Pastoral Care, Housekeeping, Maintenance and related departments."

Throughout the year, via weekly telephone calls, PRC contacts a random sampling of patients who have used the hospital's emergency services. During confidential interviews, patients answer a series of questions about their care, focusing on Emergency Room nurses, physicians and staff as well as Lab, Medical Imaging, registration and billing, overall safety and privacy issues.

Patients respond on a five-point scale and results are used to improve patient care. The data also serves as a comparison with emergency services at other hospitals.

Throughout the United States, 221 facilities use PRC to survey emergency services patients. Of that total, 22--about 10 percent--received 5-Star Awards.

St. Joseph's in Breese cares for about 8500 ER patients annually-about 25 per day on average and 35 to 40 per day on a weekend--for a variety of situations including common and acute childhood, adult and geriatric illnesses, sports injuries, cardiac ailments, trauma such as vehicle and other accidents, psychiatric situations and handling of hazardous materials.

Emergency care at St. Joseph's in Breese is provided round-the-clock by on-site specially-trained physicians and a staff of 15 registered nurses and six ER technicians. The physicians and nurses have special training in emergency care and are Advanced Cardiac and Pediatric Advanced Life Support qualified.

Cardiopulmonary, Laboratory and Medical Imaging staff are also available round-the-clock to provide care as needed.

The 4250-square foot facility was built onto the northwest side of the existing hospital in 1997 at a cost of $1.8 million.

For more information, contact Patient Care Services at 618.526-5410 or   pevans@sjb.hshs.org .