UKIAH, Calif. – John Ruskin, a leading English art critic from the early 19th century, is quoted as saying, “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”

This is an ideal that resonates with Heather Van Housen, patient care executive at Ukiah Valley Medical Center.

“Quality is something that we pay close attention to at UVMC,” said Van Housen. “I want every patient that comes through our doors to get the best care possible. And we feel that each of our employees, not just nursing staff and other caregivers, but everyone has the opportunity at some point or another to have a positive impact on a patient’s experience.”

UVMC has recently seen a significant increase in their quality scores, something which is not surprising to Van Housen.

She said UVMC is compared to 180,000 indicators for all hospitals nationwide, and they have seen significant improvements in some key patient areas.

Those areas include:

• Communication with nurses during hospital stay, ranked in the 98th percentile.
• Pain management during the hospital stay, ranked in the 96th percentile.
• Communicating with patients about their medications, ranked in the 97th percentile.
• Patients also felt that upon leaving the hospital they were well informed about symptoms and problems to look out for and ranked UVMC in the 90th percentile.

This is great news for the communities served by UVMC and should give residents confidence that they will be receiving the care they would expect from larger medical centers.

UVMC’s quality scores were revealed recently through the unveiling of a new artistic quality wall during the celebration for Quality and Infection Prevention week.