Aspirus U.P. hospitals and clinics receive 2019 Governor’s Award of Excellence for quality, patient safety

All four Aspirus hospitals in the Upper Peninsula have received MPRO’s 2019 Governor’s Award of Excellence for “Effective Reporting and Measurement.” The hospitals include Aspirus Ironwood, Aspirus Iron River, Aspirus Keweenaw and Aspirus Ontonagon.

This year, more than 130 Michigan hospitals, physician practices, nursing homes, inpatient psychiatric facilities, ambulatory surgery centers and home health agencies were honored with the Governor’s Award of Excellence. This award recognizes participants for their dedication and success in improving healthcare quality and patient safety in Michigan.

“Achieving this award is a direct reflection of how dedicated our providers and staff are in caring for our patients with the highest levels of quality and compassion,” said Darcy Donnelly, Aspirus Upper Peninsula Regional Quality Director. “Thank you to everyone for making this prestigious recognition possible and for taking such wonderful care of the communities we serve.”

The Governor’s Award of Excellence was first developed in 2003. The current award is based upon work from 2017-2018 in the following areas:

• Improving heart health
• Increasing adult immunizations
• Lowering the risk of infection in hospitals
• Effective reporting and measurement
• Improving care in nursing homes
• Increasing identification of behavioral health conditions
• Improving diabetes management

Several Aspirus clinics in the U.P. and the Aspirus Ontonagon Long Term Care unit also received the Governor’s Award of Excellence.

“We are fortunate to be able to partner with Aspirus and all the other dedicated organizations across the state of Michigan,” said MPRO President and CEO Leland Babitch, MD, MBA. “To be able to recognize these outstanding accomplishments with the Governor’s office highlights the importance of improving healthcare quality in our state.”

To be eligible for the award, participants must have achieved, maintained and continually improved in specific and rigorous milestones related to the award they received.

Award recipients were honored in May at Eagle Eye Golf Course in Bath Township, MI. For more information about the Governor’s Award of Excellence, including a full list of winners, visit http://www.mpro.org/gae2019

Aspirus is a non-profit, community-directed health system based in Wausau, Wisconsin. Its 7,700 employees are focused on improving the health and well-being of people throughout Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Aspirus serves communities through four hospitals in Upper Michigan and four hospitals in Wisconsin, more than 50 clinics, home health and hospice care, pharmacies, critical care and air-medical transport, medical goods, nursing homes and a broad network of physicians. Aspirus was recognized by IBM Watson Health as a Top 15 Health System in its 2018 and 2019 annual study identifying the top-performing health systems in the country. For more information, visit aspirus.org.

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MPRO is a nonprofit organization and national leader in healthcare quality improvement and medical review. Our goal is simple - we are helping healthcare get better. MPRO provides medical consulting and review, as well as data analysis to federal agencies, state Medicaid and public health organizations, healthcare facilities, private health plans and other third party payers. For more information about MPRO, visit www.mpro.org. In addition, MPRO represents Michigan in Lake Superior Quality Innovation Network (QIN), which also serves Minnesota and Wisconsin under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Improvement Organization Program (QIO). For more information about Lake Superior QIN, visit www.lsqin.org.