An independent national healthcare organization has given Blessing Hospital its top grade for patient safety. The Leapfrog Group gave the hospital a grade "A" for the spring 2025 national survey period. Blessing was among 32% of hospitals nationwide and one of only 35 hospitals in Illinois to receive the top grade. Blessing earned patient safety "A" grades from Leapfrog during eight previous survey periods. The Leapfrog Group assigns a letter grade of A through F to general hospitals across the country based on over 30 national performance measures reflecting errors, accidents, injuries and infections, as well as the systems hospitals have in place to prevent harm. It is the only hospital ratings program focused solely on preventable medical errors, infections and injuries that kill more than 500 patients a day in the U.S. This program is peer-reviewed. "Patient safety is a passion among Blessing's caregivers," said Tim Tranor, DNP, MBA, RN, chief nursing officer, Blessing Health System. "It requires around-the-clock attention every single day. That level of focus requires passion to achieve success. I am proud that once again our caregivers have earned top level recognition for patient safety." The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for patient safety improvements, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the information needed to make informed decisions.
We recently earned national accreditation for our specialty pharmacy. The pharmacy, on the 11th Street campus, opened in 2023 to meet the needs of area patients with chronic conditions requiring complex therapies unable to be met by medications available at traditional, retail pharmacies. Before we opened this local option for our patients, their only choices were the nine or so national specialty pharmacies. The national options often come with long wait times to receive medication and higher costs. In addition to more convenient access to life-changing medications, our specialty pharmacy patients are able to meet face-to-face with the experts on our team who answer their questions and guide them to the most effective use of their medications. We are so thankful to our team for helping us ensure that local healthcare is also nationally-recongnized for its quality!
21 Year of Open Heart Surgery❤️ Let's walk down memory lane together... The first open heart surgery was performed at Blessing Hospital on January 20, 2004. By August, the open-heart surgery team reached the milestone of 100 cases. By the end of that year, 174 open heart surgeries had been performed. With advancements in heart care over the years, some procedures that could only be done by open heart surgery in 2004 could be done by less-invasive means. Still, during 2024 demand remains strong for open heart surgery at Blessing, with 165 procedures performed. Since 2004, patients complete their recovery on our Cardiovascular Unit. Our universal cardiac bed approach allows patients to stay in the same room from admission to discharge, which results in a quicker recovery, shorter hospital stay and a smooth transition to home. Our nurses specialize in high-risk cardiac conditions and are specially trained in caring for patients requiring intra-aortic balloon pumps and those patients receiving clot busting medicine and interventional procedures. Demand for heart and vascular care grew so quickly with the opening of the Heart and Vascular Center that Blessing secured State approval to construct a second cardiac cath lab and add an eighth general operating room at the hospital. These additions were part of the Emergency Center/Open Heart Surgery construction project completed in 2005. The total investment was approximately $25 million.
Blessing Hospital was among fewer than 30% of hospitals nationwide and one of only 32 hospitals in Illinois to receive a grade "A" for patient safety during the national Leapfrog Group's fall 2024 survey period. This is a level of care and commitment that patients deserve and should expect from their provider. The Leapfrog Group assigns a letter grade of A through F to general hospitals across the country based on over 30 national performance measures reflecting errors, accidents, injuries and infections, as well as the systems hospitals have in place to prevent harm. Grades are updated in the fall and spring. This is our 8th grade "A".
Together with Tri-State Veterans Support (TSVS) recognized Blessing Health with the first "Veterans' Choice Award" during a ceremony at Blessing Hospital on Fri, Nov 8, attended by more than 100 Blessing staff and volunteers. "The Veterans' Choice Award appreciation program was created to honor the many wonderful businesses within the tri-state region that have made a difference in the lives of our great veterans and their families, and have made a positive contribution within our communities," said Richard Elsenpeter, coordinator and facilitator, TSVS. Blessing was honored for its commitment to including veterans on its paid and volunteer staffs, for partnering in the TSVS veteran suicide prevention initiative and for involvement with the national "We Honor Veterans" program. Blessing Health President and CEO, Brian Canfield, a veteran himself, said of the award, "Being recognized by the people we serve is the greatest honor we can receive."
The doors did not open until 5:30pm, but the first person arrived to wait in line at 3pm. That's how dedicated area women have become to attending our Ladies' Night event, featuring the beauty related services of the plastic and reconstructive surgery and dermatology teams. The second annual event was held September 5, and drew 200-plus women to talk with dermatologist Dr. Elise Scoggin, plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr. Arshad Muzaffar and Shanna Dierker, NP, plastic and reconstructive surgery. In addition, several of our departments and community vendors staffed booths at the event. The event helps us toward achieving our Access to Care goal, particularly in decreasing outmigration as we shared with area women services and care we offer locally.
Our Skilled Nursing Unit (SNU) earned an overall five-star rating for the recent survey period of the nation's nursing homes by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The survey is conducted four times each year. SNU has earned an overall five-star rating in each of the past four survey periods! CMS created the Five-Star Quality Rating System to help consumers, their families, and caregivers compare nursing homes more easily and to help identify areas about which consumers may want to ask questions. The Nursing Home Care Compare website features a quality rating system that gives each nursing home a rating of between 1 and 5 stars. Nursing homes with 5 stars are considered to have much-above-average quality, and nursing homes with 1 star are considered to have much-below-average quality. There is one overall star rating for each nursing home and separate ratings for health inspections, staffing, and quality measures. Maintaining the five-star rating is an opportunity the SNU team takes seriously. Each team member is dedicated and cares deeply about our residents and helping them to succeed in their health goals. Congratulations SNU team!
Friday, July 19, we - along with the rest of the world - were impacted by the largest IT outage in history when a botched software update from security vendor Crowd-Strike crashed millions of Windows systems. Healthcare, financial services, and airlines were the hardest hit. Many hospitals and clinics experienced significant computer disruptions leading to delays and cancellations. Our Information Systems teams were quick to react in the very early hours of the day. Without their exceptional efforts in quickly determining the issue and rapidly connecting to hundreds of servers to implement a fix, we would have started the business day in total downtime. Throughout the day and weekend to follow they applied a manual fix to over 400 impacted end user computers, with some remote users graciously bringing their devices to the Help Desk to be fixed. If this incident had not been managed aggressively and effectively, it would have caused a much more significant disruption to the care we provide and to our business operations. Thank you to Information Systems for your teamwork and tireless efforts to resolve this issue quickly and efficiently!
Caregivers from two departments worked together to develop a process that has been shared nationally. Garrett McSwain, RD, LDN, dietitian, spent two years working with the Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center team to create a nutrition-based wound care protocol that allows for earlier identification and assessment of wound healing. His work included data collection, research tracking, policy development and in-service staff training. Garrett shared the protocol during a national presentation titled, "More than skin deep: Nutrition management of the chronic wound." The presentation helped caregivers from around the country understand how to use wound care quality improvement data to develop and establish their own nutrition-based wound care protocol within an inpatient setting. Congratulations to everyone involved in this project for enhancing the quality of care available to our patients and for sharing your exceptional work with other providers to make a difference for patients across the country.
For the fourth consecutive year, the American Heart Association has presented Blessing Hospital caregivers with "Get With the Guidelines" Gold level recognition. Specifically, Blessing received a 2024 Gold Plus Award for meeting or exceeding national core standard levels of care in the treatment of stroke patients for two consecutive calendar years or more. Get With the Guidelines puts the expertise of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association to work for hospitals nationwide, helping ensure patient care is aligned with the latest research and evidence-based guidelines. The hospital also earned the Target: Stroke Honor Roll award for meeting specific criteria that reduces the time between an eligible patient's arrival at the hospital and treatment with a clot-buster drug; and a Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll award for ensuring patients with Type 2 diabetes, who might be at a higher risk for complications, receive the most up-to-date, evidence-based care when hospitalized due to stroke.
