VGH Patients Highly Satisfied
Patient Satisfaction Scores Show Great Progress

Monroe, WA – Providing patients safe, quality care in a healing environment is the mission of Valley General Hospital. We continually strive to improve the care patients receive, and the experience they and their families have while at the hospital. Recent patient satisfaction scores show that the hospital is making continued progress in providing high quality care to patients in a way they expect it.

VGH contracts with an outside organization to follow up with the hospital’s patients and rate the care they receive. For 2006, 90% of all inpatients surveyed rated their experience very satisfying or completely satisfying (4 and 5 on a 5 point scale). The average score for the year was 4.25, compared to the national database average of 4.16.

For the VGH Emergency Department, the average score was 4.04 compared to the national database of 3.99, which is also a .10 improvement over the 2005 score of 3.94. 79% of patients were very or completely satisfied.

Outpatient services also scored extremely well with 93% very or completely satisfied. The overall average for the year was 4.36, which was only slightly below the national database average of 4.38, but a great improvement over the 2005 average of 4.27.

“We are very pleased with our recent satisfaction scores,” states Mark Judy, VGH CEO. “It reflects the hard work we have been doing in patient care, customer service, and improving the facility. The staff’s and physician’s commitment to clinical quality and improved patient experience is making the difference.”

Along with improved satisfaction scores, Valley General Hospital has been ranking above national averages in many quality indicators. The publicly-reported quality data, which can be found at www.wsha.org under hospital transparency, indicates that not only are we reaching our goals in patient experience, but also in providing safe, quality care.