Orlando, Florida (May 20, 2008) Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans, Vermont has been named a National Award winner in healthcare service quality for Exemplary Service Overall Best Performer 2007 by Avatar International, a leader in healthcare surveys and consulting.
This is a wonderful recognition of the efforts of everyone in the NMC family, said Peter Hofstetter, NMC's Chief Executive Officer. This is national recognition of what we have each worked so hard to achieve that our entire staff provides incredible care and service to our patients and our community.
Jane Catton, NMC's Director of Process Improvement, and Lynn Desautels, NMC's Process Improvement Specialist, attended Avatar International's Client Symposium 2008 in Orlando, Florida to accept the award on NMC's behalf.
In making the announcement, Michael Everett, Ph.D., Avatar Founder and CEO said, Northwestern Medical Center has excelled on the very difficult task of providing exceptional service to patients throughout the medical center. Many medical centers have pockets of excellence, but you have demonstrated wide-spread service quality. Your patients benefit from such consistency: they can count on your staff whatever the reason for their visit.
NMC is one of approximately 300 hospitals nationally using the Avatar system, and was one of 12 hospitals being recognized as part of this honor with NMC's scores coming within a single percentage point of the top overall score in the nation. This award is based on the results of the hospital's 2007 patient surveys. It is awarded to those hospitals with the highest overall combined score for Inpatient, Outpatient, Emergency Department, and Ambulatory Surgery.
Avatar is the premier provider of hospital survey needs in the healthcare industry. Avatar has served healthcare nationally for over twenty-five years including small community hospitals, academic medical centers, large regional medical centers, integrated healthcare systems, long-term care and behavioral health organizations. Avatar provides the most accurate, comprehensive, customized, and actionable patient surveys in the industry. Avatar is the only survey vendor that constructs a unique survey for each and every patient to measure the precise care and services received.
Northwestern Medical Center, nestled at the top of Fairfield Street in St. Albans, Vermont, provides nationally award winning health care, in an intimate, collaborative setting. For more information about NMC, visit us online at www.northwesternmedicalcenter.org.