CareChex Honors UConn John Dempsey Hospital

UConn John Dempsey Hospital is a new recipient of 2022 CareChex awards for: Top 10% Hospital in the Nation - Patient Safety award, #1 in State Awards for Major Neurosurgery: Medical Excellence, and #1 in State Awards for Major Neurosurgery: Patient Safety.

UConn John Dempsey Hospital. (Tina Encarnacion/UConn Health photo)

For the first time UConn John Dempsey Hospital has been awarded CareChex Awards as a national leader in patient safety and in Connecticut for both neurosurgery medical excellence and patient safety.

UConn’s teaching hospital is a 2022 recipient of the CareChex Top 10% Hospital in the Nation – Patient Safety award. Also, for 2022 in Connecticut UConn John Dempsey Hospital now ranks #1 in State Awards for Major Neurosurgery: Medical Excellence and #1 in State Awards for Major Neurosurgery: Patient Safety.

The annual CareChex ratings, compiled by the company Quantros, are based on publicly available data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, CMS, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Quantros uses a proprietary method to compile this national data and objectively measure the overall health care quality, safety and medical excellence of a hospital’s specific inpatient care at the national, state, and regional level.

The mission of CareChex ratings is to provide objective and independent, comprehensive analysis of medical quality that does not incorporate any self-reported hospital data. The awards are based on a rigorous review of hospital patient complications, readmissions, mortality, safety and inpatient quality indicators.

“UConn is honored to be nationally recognized by CareChex for patient safety and neurosurgery,” says Dr. Scott R. Allen, chief medical officer for UConn Health. “What sets CareChex hospital awards apart are its use of risk-adjusted, objective data to measure patient safety and health care quality. Being in the top 10% of about 4,700 hospitals reflects our commitment to high reliability and a focus on patient safety.”

“To be ranked number 1 for major neurosurgery in our state is truly a reflection of not only the surgical care provided, but also the exemplary before and after surgery care by all those that interact with our patients,” says Dr. Ketan R. Bulsara, professor and chief of the Division of Neurosurgery at UConn Health. “I am truly proud of this achievement because it reflects on excellence in every portion of our patient journeys and is a tribute to not only the immediate neurosurgery team and our surgical collaborators, but also all staff at UConn Health ranging from clinic team, emergency room, radiology, anesthesia, pathology, intensive care unit, and inpatient teams plus nursing, physical therapists/occupational therapists, speech therapists, case management, and all ancillary staff to just name a few.”

Bulsara adds: “Thank you to the leadership of UConn Health, UConn School of Medicine, and the Department of Surgery without whose guidance such an achievement would not be possible.”