Falmouth, Cape Cod Hospitals Get High Grades For Patient Satisfaction, Treatment Procedures

Just to keep everyone from getting a big head thanks to a brimming cup of kudos, particularly for cardiac care, the night staff at Cape Cod Hospital got its own wake-up call this spring from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“Keep it quiet, people!”

Overall, though, the folks at Cape Cod Healthcare feel pretty good about results from the latest regular survey concerning quality care at 4,500 hospitals nationwide conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The results are available on the HHS Hospital Compare website.

Most of the 36 specific questions listed in six different categories dealt with strictly medical care. But this latest survey included a new addition concerned with patient satisfaction.

And that’s where the noise question was hidden.

Asked if “the area around their room was always quiet at night,” just 48 percent of Cape Cod Hospital respondents answered in the affirmative. Falmouth Hospital fared only slightly better, 50 percent.

However, this was the only category where the local hospitals failed to show outstanding results. (And most other institutions don’t show much difference in their nocturnal noise levels with hospitals in Massachusetts reporting in at only 48 percent and a national satisfaction level just six points higher.)

Moving on to the really significant areas of patient satisfaction and outcomes, the local hospitals definitely did better than well.
In rating their hospital experience overall, 71 percent at Cape Cod and 69 percent of Falmouth patients graded their treatment as either a nine or a perfect 10.

And would they recommend these two hospitals to friends and relations? The yeses were Cape Cod 76 percent, Falmouth 79 percent.
By comparison, the positive responses to their hospital stays were only 63 percent both nationally and throughout Massachusetts; and the would-you-recommend numbers also trailed us with a 70 percent positive response throughout the Commonwealth and a lower 67 percent nationally.

Both Cape hospitals graded in the 70s for cleanliness. And Falmouth Hospital hit 84 percent for its pre-discharge briefings with Cape Cod Hospital at 78.

Here are some striking details:

• In the five categories dealing with surgery and infection prevention involving thousands of patients, the lowest rating was a 92 percent and the highs were a pair of 99s;
• In the seven categories for treating pneumonia, there were two 100s and the rest in the 70s or better;
• In the eight categories for treatment of heart attacks, there were four 100 percent ratings and all the rest were in the 90s, except for some areas where the sampling was too small to be significant;
• In four categories for treating “heart failure,” the two hospitals registered four 100 percent ratings and a pair of lows in the 70s. (The really good news was the high number of patients—498—who obviously received counseling on their way home.)
• Finally, in the category of deaths, the adjusted adult mortality rates for heart failure was rated “no different” from the national average. In the matter of deaths from heart attacks, this also was true at Falmouth Hospital. But at Cape Cod Hospital the survival rate following heart attacks was “better than the U.S. national rate.”

“This confirms again Cape Cod Hospital as a first-rate center for cardiac care in line with the best hospitals in the country,” said Dr. Richard Zelman, Director of Interventional Cardiology at Cape Cod Healthcare, “These results validate the superior capabilities of our physicians and all care-givers who assist cardiac patients in returning to healthy living.”

Maybe all that “noise” at Cape Cod Hospital was the night staff celebrating another successful outcome.

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Meanwhile, the VNA of Cape Cod, a Cape Cod Healthcare affiliate, has been recognized by two national rating agencies. It was named to the 2007 HomeCare Elite, a compilation of the most successful Medicare-certified home health care providers in the United States that annually identifies the top 25 percent of agencies ranked by an analysis of performance measures. The VNA also was honored for its performance by Masspro, the Medicare quality improvement organization for Massachusetts.