Quality & Safety

Improving Quality of Care and Keeping Patients Safe

At Winchester Hospital, quality and patient safety are among our top priorities. We work hard to improve patient outcomes and make our facility the safest environment possible for patients, visitors and colleagues. We are constantly striving to improve quality and safety, reduce errors, eliminate harm and meet the needs of our patients.

About Our Quality & Patient Safety Department

The Quality and Patient Safety Department monitors performance on important quality metrics and works with other departments to develop programs to improve the quality and safety of the care we provide.

Make Your Voice Heard

We encourage you to take an active role in your care by asking questions and speaking up about your concerns. If you have concerns about the quality of the care you received, please contact our patient advocate at 781-756-7159.

Quality Ratings

We are committed to transparency in our quality assurance processes. To assist our patients and their families, we’ve provided links to various reporting tools below.

• Care Compare provides you with information on how well the hospitals in your area care for their adult patients with certain medical conditions to help you compare the quality of care different hospitals provide.
• Quality Check provides detailed information about an organization’s performance, The Joint Commission’s accreditation decision and the effective dates of the accreditation award.
• PatientCareLink is the nation’s healthcare resource dedicated to providing patients, families and caregivers with the most transparent information available on the care provided at different Massachusetts hospitals.
• HealthGrades offers physician, surgeon and hospital reports to assist consumers in selecting healthcare providers.
• Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP) provides information to help physicians improve the quality of care they provide their patients and help consumers take an active role in making informed decisions about their healthcare.
• The Leapfrog Group offers an interactive tool allowing consumers to compare hospitals’ progress implementing Leapfrog-recommended quality and safety practices.

Our Dedication to Continuous Improvement

Winchester Hospital is committed to continuously improving all our care delivery systems. Despite our many awards and recognition, we recognize that there are always ways to do things better – that means more efficiently and more safely.

Our patients benefit from every improvement in safety and quality. And our community as a whole benefits from efficiency and cost savings, as well as the investments we make in our facilities. That’s because as a nonprofit hospital, any surplus funds are used to expand and enhance the healthcare services we provide. Our aim is to offer care rooted in the most updated evidence-based guidelines and best practices.

Here are some examples of the many improvement initiatives taking place at Winchester Hospital:

• As part of ongoing renovations in the Laboratory, staff from the Laboratory Department are using concepts from Lean Methodology in an effort to improve efficiencies in their department. That work will create more efficient design and workflows while reducing waste.
• The Emergency Department is working collaboratively with an inpatient unit and piloting a new patient handoff process. This new process optimizes the use of critical data in the Electronic Medical Record and will improve throughput as well as nurse and patient satisfaction.
• The Infection Prevention Specialists at Winchester Hospital have implemented best practices for hand hygiene compliance and other infection control measures which are critical in keeping our staff and patients safe.

Patient Satisfaction Scores

We monitor patient satisfaction scores on a daily basis because we’re always looking for ways to improve. We are proud to report that Winchester Hospital is currently ranked in the 99th percentile nationally for overall patient satisfaction in the emergency department, outpatient services and home care.

How We Compare Statewide & Nationally

Here’s a sampling of our performance ratings:

ICU Staffing Ratios

As part of our effort to continue offering the best possible patient and family centered experience, Winchester Hospital is committed to providing our quarterly ICU staffing ratios to patients, colleagues and regulatory agencies. This ratio indicates the average number of patients our ICU nurses care for during a given work day.