FGH receives IQH Quality Award

Forrest General Hospital recently announced that the hospital received a quality award recognizing their outstanding work from Information and Quality Healthcare (IQH). IQH is the Quality Improvement Organization for the state of Mississippi. The organization reviews services provided to Medicare patients, ensuring that care is reasonable, provided in the most appropriate setting and is in line with standards of care.

From October 2006 to September 2007, IQH worked on a special project, the 8th Scope of Work Hospital Payment Monitoring Program. Forrest General was chosen to participate in this project as one of the seven largest hospitals in Mississippi. The object of this program was to reduce one- and two-day stays for heart failure patients, and identify the cases where the patient could have been treated in a setting other than acute care admission. The goal of this project was to reduce one- and two-day stays by at least 25 percent.

Initial results showed that 38.86 percent of acute care heart failure admissions state-wide were unnecessary, according to the IQH. As an end result of the project, unnecessary admissions were reduced by 29 percent, exceeding the project's goal.

After a three month study of all seven participating hospitals, Forrest General was 100 percent in compliance in the category of appropriateness of admission.