Charleston Area Medical Center Health System

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
2015 Award Recipient, Health Care

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Highest-Ranking Official*
David L. Ramsey
President and CEO

Public Affairs Contact

*At time of award

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For more information
Charleston Area Medical Center Health System
501 Morris St.
Charleston, WV 25326
(304) 388-5000
quality [at] camc.org (quality[at]camc[dot]org)
http://camc.org

The Charleston Area Medical Center Health System (CAMCHS) in Charleston, W.Va., operates four hospitals within the Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC): CAMC General Hospital, CAMC Memorial Hospital, CAMC Women and Children's Hospital, and CAMC Teays Valley Hospital. The system also includes the CAMC Foundation; the CAMC Health and Education Research Institute; document, cancer, weight loss, and physical therapy centers; and the physician clinics of Integrated Health Care Providers, Inc. Services at CAMC include a Level 1 Trauma Center, top-level neonatal intensive care unit and pediatric intensive care, West Virginia's only kidney transplant center, and subspecialists in every service line. CAMCHS operates with a revenue of $956 million and a workforce of just under 7,000 employees (including nearly 800 physicians) and more than 300 volunteers.

Highlights 

• For the past two years, the Charleston Area Medical Center Health System has ranked in the top 5 percent for quality inpatient service by Healthgrades, a national service that rates the performance of physicians, hospitals and health care providers, and received the group's Distinguished Hospital Award.
• CAMC ranks in the top 10 percent nationally for outpatient satisfaction in all areas, including wait times, communication, staff courtesy and respect, doctor time with patient, and information given to patients for self-care.
• CAMC's Sepsis Performance Improvement Team saved 1,798 lives from 2011 to 2014 through increased awareness and early identification, better than the national top 10 percent level since 2012.
• As West Virginia's largest provider of uncompensated care, CAMC exceeds local and national benchmarks for such activity, reflecting its mission to provide the best health care to every patient, every day. CAMCHS's commitment to improving the health of its neighbors is demonstrated by community benefit expenditures that exceed the national average by 76 percent and total over $115 million annually.

System-Wide Commitment to Superior Care

• For the past two years, CAMC has received the Distinguished Hospital Award from Healthgrades, a national service that rates the performance of physicians, hospitals, and health care providers.
• CAMC ranked in the top 5 percent among local and regional competitors for overall quality in inpatient performance in both 2014 and 2015, based on the Healthgrades database, as well as those of two similar rating services, Premier and Comparion Medical Analytics. All three companies have ranked CAMC in the top 10 percent nationally, also for quality inpatient service, since 2012.
• CAMC achieved top 10 percent status for patient safety in 2013 and 2014, according to the patient safety indicator composite from the federal government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.  
• According to the Comparion Medical Analytics national database, CAMC ranked in the top 10 percent nationally for best care and lowest mortality for trauma/orthopedic patients in 2012 and 2013 (the latest data available).
• Based on Premier data, CAMC has outperformed the top 25 percent of hospitals nationally in avoiding unnecessary readmissions, consistently lowering its rate of readmissions since 2011.

Compassion and Consideration for All

• When surveyed about which area hospital "provides the highest-quality care," local residents rank CAMC first by tenfold over its closest competitor.
• CAMC ranks in the top 10 percent nationally for overall outpatient satisfaction in all areas. These results are based on the national Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey, of which CAMC was a voluntary and early participant.
• CAMC ranks in the top 10 percent nationally for its patient discharge process, according to the CMS benchmark. Staff use specially designed resources such as the Service Excellence Playbook to ensure that discharged patients have the verbal and written information they need to manage their care at home as appropriate.

Strong Patient Focus from Satisfied Employees

• Since 2012, according to Healthcare Performance Solutions (HPS, a consulting and advisory services firm that helps hospitals and health systems improve organizational performance), CAMCHS has ranked in the top 10 percent nationally on the HPS patient focus index, a rating based on staff understanding of the organizational culture and the vision to "deliver the best care."
• Since 2010, CAMC's employee turnover rate has been better than the U.S. benchmark set by Nursing Solutions Inc., a national hospital staffing service. Despite the challenge of a limited workforce pool and difficulty recruiting from out-of-state, CAMC has maintained a superior workforce by committing to a "growing our own" environment in which qualified internal candidates are selected and trained to fill critical vacancies.
• Honoring a commitment to continuing education and a learning culture, the CAMC Foundation provides educational grants for employees to further their education in medicine, nursing, or other fields that support CAMC's workforce needs. Continuing education hours are awarded through the CAMC University in social work, pharmacy, and nursing. Participation in this program has been growing steadily since 2012.
• Each CAMC recruiting and orientation process contains a diversity awareness module that goes beyond traditional awareness and incorporates generational and community needs, including special considerations for the residents of Appalachia.

Quality Service Supported by Financial Wellness

• Despite an above-average need in its service area for uncompensated care, CAMC has maintained an average operating margin of 5.2 percent since 2011, exceeding the Truven Health Analytics national benchmark for teaching hospitals, as well as those from other rating services.
• CAMC is the market leader in all service lines, including medicine, cardiovascular, mother/baby, surgery, and trauma care. The hospital touches over 51 percent of all residents within Kanawha County, W.Va., for inpatient, outpatient, and emergency room services.
• Over the past four years, supply chain contract negotiations have saved $6 million while annual and cumulative cost-reduction efforts yielded $12 million in savings

Strategic Planning + Process Efficiency = Prescription for Success

• CAMC reviews its key performance measures annually for alignment with the organizational vision and revises them to address strategic objectives and goals. The hospital modified action plans and used intelligent risk criteria to make recent changes, including the establishment of programs for infusion solutions and radiation oncology, integrating Teays Valley Hospital into the CAMCHS, and switching information technology systems.
• Leveraging its learning culture and continuous performance review process, CAMC determines if progress on action plans is adequate. If not, plans and budgets are modified at appropriate levels—with oversight by senior leaders working with the responsible managers—to identify the needed correction and improvement actions.
• CAMC's Sepsis Performance Improvement Team saved 1,798 lives from 2011 to 2014 through increased awareness and early identification, better than the Premier national top 10 percent level since 2012. To achieve this success, the team used process improvement methods such as DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control), Lean methodology, and "voice-of-the-customer" data analysis.
• Supply-chain management using service-line analytics has resulted in $300,000 in annual savings. In addition, the use of Lean methodology to eliminate batching in the production line for IV pharmacy medication waste resulted in annual savings of $134,000, exceeding the target of a 50 percent reduction and totaling $670,000 to date.

A Heart as Big as the West Virginia Mountains

• As West Virginia's largest provider of uncompensated care, CAMC exceeds local and national benchmarks for such activity, reflecting its mission to provide the best health care to every patient, every day. CAMCHS's commitment to improving the health of its neighbors is demonstrated by community benefit expenditures that exceed the national average by 76 percent and total over $115 million annually.
• Community fundraising through the "Power of Many" campaign brought in $15 million for a new cancer center, adding to the more than $2 million raised through the annual CAMC Foundation campaign.
• To improve the health of the community, work groups help prioritize and plan health benefit programs, and charity care and community benefit programs address community needs, including the needs for perinatal telemedicine, a child advocacy center, and HIV programs.

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