(Spirit Lake)– Lakes Regional Healthcare is getting some special recognition. LRH President and CEO Jason Harrington says they’ve once again been awarded with the highest rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services…
“Every year about this time Medicare and Medicaid present their five star ratings. They actually have a one through five star rating, five being the highest rating. 10 percent of the hospitals in the country receive a five star rating and Lakes Regional Healthcare was one of them. Actually we’ve been extremely fortunate in that this is our fourth consecutive year in being awarded a five star rating, so we are extremely excited about that.”
Harrington says it truly makes Lakes Regional Healthcare stand out among other facilities…
“There are actually in Iowa no five star rated hospitals in the western half of the state other than Lakes Regional Healthcare. There’s one five star rated hospital in southwest Minnesota, so it’s a very high honor and we’re very proud of the fact to be the only in a fairly significant part of our region.”
Harrington says several factors need to be met in order for a hospital to achieve the five-star rating…
“What Medicare does is they look at about four domains, so patient safety, quality outcomes, cost and patient experience. Patient experience being patient satisfaction. And then they take those four domains and they create a star rating based on those four domains. So it’s really looking at the full compliment of care being provided.”
He attributes the high rating to the high quality of staff at Lakes Regional Healthcare…
“The community is fortunate to have a really, really great team at Lakes Regional Healthcare from our housekeepers to our physicians to our nurses to our nutrition services staff. Really a team sport and I say that all of the time and we’re fortunate here in the Lakes Area to have a great healthcare team.”
You can find more information about the CMS “Care Compare” report at medicare.gov.
