This past year, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center adopted new technological advancements, added innovative leaders to its team, and earned admirable accolades.
Towards the beginning of the year, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center welcomed Jeffrey M. Welch as its new CEO. With over 25 years of operational and financial leadership expertise in major academic medical centers and community health systems, he oversees the 199-bed acute care hospital’s operations, executive planning and medical services.
In early summer, Palm Beach Gardens earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite Plus. The award recognizes the hospital’s dedication to ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines. To qualify for the award, hospitals must have administered the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) to stroke patients within 45 minutes of the patient’s arrival at least 50 percent of the time and under 60 minutes 75 percent of the time. Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center’s average door-to-needle time is only 33.9 minutes.
Also in summer, the hospital welcomed the addition of the MAGNETOM Aera 1.5T Open Bore MRI system to its radiology suite. The technology is designed to offer several benefits including superb image quality to satisfy a wide range of medical needs and help physicians make quicker, more accurate diagnoses. Additionally, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center was the first hospital in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin County, to adopt a new minimally invasive procedure called the convergent approach for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Early clinical experience has shown that the convergent approach, conducted in a single operating room setting, can improve early outcomes for the most challenging patients and can reduce procedure times when compared to approaches where the two disciplines work separately.
In August, the hospital named Dr. Linda Kiley the new medical director of women’s surgical services and welcomed a new chief operating officer, Teresa C. Urquhart. With more than three decades of healthcare expertise, Urquhart manages the daily operations and oversees the development and implementation of long-range plans, goals and objectives for the hospital.
In the fall, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center earned the Mission: Lifeline® Gold Receiving Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association (AHA) for the treatment of severe heart attack patients. As the only hospital in Palm Beach County to receive an AHA Mission: Lifeline Award alongside local EMS providers, Palm Beach Gardens has succeeded in working with fire rescue personnel to create an integrated system to provide the community with high quality care. The hospital also earned the Get with the Guidelines Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2015 for its commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients. To earn platinum level, the hospital consistently followed the treatment guidelines in the ACTION Registry-GWTG Premier for eight consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific measures.
Palm Beach Gardens acquired another technological advancement, the Physio-Control LUCAS 2 chest compression system in October, and is the first hospital-based emergency department in Palm Beach County to utilize this external mechanical device. Intended to be used while treating adult patients in cardiac arrest, the system helps reduce hands-off intervals in treating patients, maintains high quality, mechanical and external compressions, and allows for simultaneous manual defibrillation.
The Heart & Vascular Institute at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center earned multiple awards from Healthgrades for demonstrating high quality care when treating patients with severe heart issues. Some of the most noteworthy accomplishments include:
• One of Healthgrades America’s 50 Best Hospitals for Cardiac Surgery™ in 2016
• Recipient of the Healthgrades 2016 Cardiac Care Excellence Award™
• Named Among the Top 5% in the Nation for Cardiac Surgery in 2016
• Named Among the Top 10% in the Nation for Overall Cardiac Services in 2016
• Five-Star Recipient for Treatment of Heart Failure for 10 Years in a Row (2007-2016)
Wrapping up the year, Palm Beach Gardens was awarded an “A” for the Fall Hospital Safety Score by The Leapfrog Group for the 6th consecutive time. The hospital was also featured in The Joint Commission’s 2015 annual report, “America’s Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety,” as a 2014 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures®. Delray was recognized for attaining and sustaining excellence in accountability measure performance for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, surgical care, venous thromboembolism and stroke. The two distinctions allow Palm Beach Gardens to end 2015 on a high note.
Since performing the first open-heart surgery in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, the hospital is proud to continue achieving excellence over 30 years later and is looking forward to the accomplishments of 2016.
