Inova Fairfax Hospital Ranked 'One Of America's Best Hospitals' In Annual Survey By U.S. News & World Report 7/12/2002
From: Lisa Wolfington of Inova Health System, 703-321-2946 FALLS CHURCH, Va., July 12 -- U.S. News & World Report's annual hospital survey lists Inova Fairfax Hospital as "One of America's Best Hospitals." This is the sixth time in the past seven years that Inova Fairfax Hospital has been included in the prestigious listing of top hospitals nationwide. This year, the hospital was ranked among the nation's Top 50 hospitals in the category of Hormonal Disorders: Diabetes and Thyroid Conditions. The Inova Diabetes Center, which provides comprehensive diabetes services to inpatients and outpatients of the hospital, is also a recipient of the prestigious certificate of recognition from the American Diabetes Association and provides educational and clinical services developed jointly with the International Diabetes Center. The nurses and dietitians of the Inova Diabetes Center are certified diabetes educators. Our clients not only learn about diabetes, they learn to make the lifestyle changes necessary to improve their health and quality of life--now and for the future. Our participants are successful-- their blood sugars improve, they lose weight, and they exercise more regularly. The Inova Diabetes Center services are offered at Inova hospitals/offices, and when medically indicated, diabetes care is provided in the home. Services include: -- classes for managing type 2 diabetes -- individual consultations with a nurse, nutritionist and/or family counselor -- support groups and community programs According to U.S. News & World Report, hospitals on the annual list excel partly because their doctors perform large numbers of difficult and risky procedures. The hospitals also tend to adhere more closely to advanced treatment guidelines, to incorporate new findings into patient care, and to conduct research that gives desperately ill patients more options. "We're very honored and pleased to make the list again," said H. Patrick Walters, interim administrator, Inova Fairfax Hospital, and senior vice president of Inova Health System. "The rankings clearly reflect the high-level expertise and skill of our physicians, nurses and staff who are dedicated to providing quality care to their patients everyday." In most of the specialties, a hospital must first meet one of three standards just to be considered: membership in the Council of Teaching Hospitals, affiliation with a medical school, or availability of at least nine of 17 specified items of medical technology. After meeting the criteria, the pool of more than 6,000 hospitals first considered was reduced to just under 2,000 thousand hospitals. In each specialty, a hospital must perform a given number of procedures or be cited by at least one physician in the past three years of U.S. News surveys. Ranked hospitals received a score that equally weighs reputation, mortality and a group of care-related factors, e.g., nursing, including the ratio of registered nurses to patient beds. For reputation, 180 board-certified physicians were selected at random and were asked to list up to five hospitals they consider as the best in their specialty regardless of cost or location. The mortality ratios examined compare the number of deaths of Medicare patients with specified conditions in 1998, 1999 and 2000 with the number expected. Most of the remaining data reviewed came from the American Hospital Association's 2000 annual survey of hospitals. ------ Inova Health System is a not-for-profit health care system in Northern Virginia that consists of hospitals and other health services including home care, nursing homes, mental health services, wellness classes, and emergency and urgent care centers. Governed by a voluntary board of community members, Inova's mission is to provide quality care and to improve the health of the diverse communities we serve. |