Banner Health Washakie Medical Center receives three stars

WORLAND – Banner Health Washakie Medical Center in Worland earned three stars out of five from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) this year.

Eighteen facilities were rated in Wyoming with Jackson’s St. John’s being the only facility to earn five stars. Campbell County Memorial Hospital in Gillette, Cody Regional Hospital, Memorial Hospital of Converse County in Douglas, Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County in Rock Springs, Powell Valley Hospital and Sheridan Memorial earned four stars.

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Community Hospital in Torrington, Evanston Regional Hospital, Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital in Thermopolis, Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, North Big Horn Hospital District in Lovell, Star Valley Medical Center in Afton, Wyoming Medical Center in Casper and Washakie Medical Center in Worland received three stars.

Platte County Memorial Hospital in Wheatland and Sage West Health in Riverton received two stars.

Banner Health Washakie Medical Center CEO Jay Stallings stated that CMS ratings are based on health care quality measures, complex statistical formulas and policy decisions. The more stars the better a hospital performed in a variety of health care services. There are seven categories of services which include patient experience, safety of care, re-admission, mortality, effectiveness of care, timeliness of care and medical imaging with 57 measures within the categories.

“Washakie Medical Center is only eligible for a performance rating on 18 of the 57 measures.  Some of the challenges we face are the lower volume of patients seen at the hospital and the lack of some community programs for continuing care outside of the hospital.  For example, we do very well with our Patient Experience survey scores, but we do not get a performance rating with CMS on those surveys because of the low volume completed.  Safety of Care is yet another area where we score very well with our patients, but do not get a CMS performance rating because of the lower volume of surveys returned from patients treated in our facility.  Our Emergency Department Timeliness of Care performance score is better than the national means score,” Stallings said.

He added that Banner Health Washakie Medical Center would always be in the three star rating. “Our re-admission rate to the hospital for chronic conditions and our mortality rates are both slightly higher than the national means and this also affects our scores.  As we are a rural community, some of the services needed post-discharge from inpatient care, such as hospice, are not available outside of the hospital.  Patients will then return to the hospital for management of their chronic conditions and for their end-of-life care.  We are grateful we can provide this valuable service to our patients.  Nevertheless, strictly by the rules of CMS five star ratings, when a patient returns to the hospital for end-of-life care, it impacts the hospital’s ‘ratings.’  This is a tradeoff we, Washakie Medical Center, gladly accept until there is a more suitable and permanent solution for our community.”

Stallings stated that Banner Health Washakie Medical Center will use the information not only from the CMS ratings, but from patients and all other reliable quality sources to help improve their performance and patient satisfaction.