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Delmarva Foundation Announces Quality Improvement Awardees
Recipients honored at Annual "Courage to Improve" Conference

College Park, Maryland - September 28, 2006 - Delmarva Foundation, Medicare’s Quality Improvement Organization for the District of Columbia and Maryland, today announced the winners of its annual quality improvement awards. The awards were given at Delmarva’s fourth annual Courage to Improve Conference, held at The University of Maryland at College Park Inn and Conference Center. Healthcare CEOs, administrators, and medical staff attended the conference event, which is a forum for healthcare professionals from Maryland and the District of Columbia to network and share best practices for improving the quality of care in hospitals, home health agencies, and nursing homes.

"Delmarva Foundation is honored to recognize these facilities for their commitment to improving the quality of care provided to residents of Maryland and the District of Columbia,” said Christian Jensen, M.D., President and CEO, Delmarva Foundation. "We commend the recipients of these awards for their leadership as they continue to work toward improving healthcare in our local communities. “

The following is a list of awards and recipients:

Delmarva Foundation Hospital Quality Award: The purpose of this award is to recognize hospitals in the District of Columbia and Maryland that have achieved outstanding performance on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Appropriate Care Measure (ACM). This composite measure tracks care provided at the patient level and measures how often individual patients receive all appropriate care for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. The Hospital Quality Award is given to hospitals ranked in the top 10 percent of all hospitals across the District of Columbia and Maryland in the ACM for the last quarter of 2005.

• Edward McCready Memorial Hospital: Crisfield, Maryland
• Harford Memorial Hospital: Havre de Grace, Maryland
• Mercy Medical Center: Baltimore, Maryland
• Saint Joseph Medical Center: Towson, Maryland
• Upper Chesapeake Medical Center: Bel Air, Maryland

The Delmarva Foundation Hospital Improvement Award: The Hospital Improvement Award is the highest level of recognition awarded to hospitals by Delmarva Foundation. This award recognizes hospitals in the District of Columbia and Maryland that have achieved and sustained a high level of performance on a select group of CMS and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) performance measures. The CEO or President of the winning hospital also automatically wins the Leadership Award. The Hospital Improvement Award is given to hospitals that have achieved performance measure rates of 90 percent or above on at least 11 of the 20 CMS/JCAHO performance measures and sustained that level of performance for at least three consecutive quarters. This year’s winner is:

• Harbor Hospital: Baltimore, Maryland

Nursing Home Quality Award: The purpose of this award is to recognize nursing homes whose performance in each of the following four publicly reported quality measures of high-risk pressure ulcers, physical restraints, depression, and chronic pain represents ranks within the top 5th percentile of all nursing homes nationwide. This year’s award winner:

• St. Joseph’s Nursing Home

Delmarva Foundation Home Health Quality Award: The purpose of this award is to recognize home health agencies that have among the lowest Acute Care Hospitalization rates nationwide. To win this award, a winning facility’s Acute Care Hospitalization (ACH) rate must be within the top 5th percentile of all agencies nationwide.

• Charlestown Community Home Health

Delmarva Foundation Nursing Home Improvement Award: This award recognizes individual nursing home performance and positive outcomes on the clinical quality measures including pressure ulcer, pain, depression, and physical restraints.  Receiving this award demonstrates a nursing home’s commitment to excellence and serves as a continuing reminder of quality improvement.  This year’s winners were able to improve their individual quality measures rates by 50 percent (or sustains a zero rate) or greater in at least two of four quality measures and sustain that improvement for two consecutive quarters.

• Adventist Sligo Creek Nursing Rehabilitation Center
• Annapolis Nursing & Rehabilitation Center
• Adventist Healthcare Fairland
• Brightwood Center
• Broadmead
• Buckingham's Choice
• Charlotte Hall Veterans Home
• Chestnut Green Health Center Blakehur
• Collington Episcopal Life Care Community
• Crawford Retreat
• Fairhaven, Inc.
• Forestville Health & Rehabilitation Center
• Friends Nursing Home
• Future Care Sandtown-Winchester
• Gladys Spellman Specialty Hospital
• Glen Meadows Retirement Community
• Heartland Health Care  Hyattsville
• Heron Point of Chestertown
• Hillhaven Nursing Center
• Holly Hill Manor Inc.
• Ingleside Presbyterian Retirement
• Knollwood Manor Nursing Home
• Lisner Louise Dickson Hurt Home
• Lorien Taneytown, Inc.
• Manor Care Health Service Towson
• Maria Health Care Center, Inc.
• Mariner Health Of North Arundel
• Maryland Baptist Aged Home
• Medlink Nursing Center
• Northwest Health & Rehabilitation
• Perring Parkway Center
• Pickersgill, Inc.
• Randallstown Center
• Randolph Hills Nursing Home
• Roland Park Place
• St. Joseph's  Nursing  Home
• St. Vincent Care Center
• Sunrise at Thomas Circle
• The Villa
• Woodside Center

Delmarva Foundation Home Health Improvement Award: This award recognizes individual Home Health Agencies performance improvements. Recipients of this year’s award met the following award criteria: they set a target for their Acute Care Hospitalization (ACH), saw an ACH absolute improvement of at least 25 percent, and completed a baseline immunization survey.

• Berhan Home Health Care Agency
• Charlestown Community Home Health
• Heartland Home Care
• HHCD, Inc D/B/A Professional Home Health Agency
• Speqtrum Home Health Care Services

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About Delmarva Foundation
Delmarva Foundation is a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality in over 20 states. Since 1973, Delmarva has assisted in improving care in hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, medical practices and health plans. Delmarva performs quality improvement, quality assurance, utilization review, external quality review and Program Safeguard activities. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Easton, Maryland with other offices in Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, DC; Columbia, South Carolina; Tampa, Florida; and Tallahassee, Florida. For more information, please visit Delmarva Foundation on the web at www.delmarvafoundation.org.