Photo: Guardian of Excellence Award–Accepting from Patrick T. Ryan (center) were (left to right) Holly Wuebker, RN, Jenny Roby, RN, Shelly Hammen, RN, and SMCH CEO Cindy Carstens
On Nov. 1, CEO of Stewart Memorial Community Hospital (SMCH), Cindy Carstens, HomeCare supervisor, Shelly Hammen, and HomeCare nurses, Holly Wuebker and Jenny Roby, accepted the 2017 Guardian of Excellence Award at the Press Ganey National Client Conference in Orlando, Fla. The award recognizes top-performing health care organizations that have consistently achieved in the 95th percentile of performance in patient experience. Carstens says this recognition from an industry leader in measuring and understanding the patient experience has been invaluable in developing their strategies and best practices. “Our partnership with Press Ganey provides us with monthly feedback that allows us to recognize staff for great work as well as create process improvement plans for an experience that did not go as desired,” Carstens says. The patients are like family, according to Carstens, and they work together as a team to provide individualized care that brings together all departments necessary for positive patient outcomes.
