LaGRANGE — West Georgia Health has received the 2016 Women’s Choice Award as one of America’s Best Hospitals for Patient Safety.

This evidence-based designation is the only patient safety award that identifies the country’s best healthcare institutions based on robust criteria that considers female patient satisfaction and clinical excellence, according to a press release from West Georgia Health.

The list of over 472 award winners, including West Georgia Health, represents hospitals that have exceptional performance in limiting a wide range of hospital-associated infections and complications from surgery and medical treatment.

“It is fulfilling to receive this award because not only is it evidence-based, but it also is rewarding because it is based in part on feedback from our female patients,” said Jerry Fulks, West Georgia Health’s President and CEO. “Caring for them, and touching their lives in meaningful ways, is deeply gratifying to us as they have entrusted us to provide them quality, compassionate care.”

Hospitals that have earned this award have had a low incidence of problems arising from surgical errors and infections. The hospitals that report their frequency to The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are ranked for each of the following eleven measures:

1. Deaths among patients with serious treatable complications after surgery.

2. Collapsed lung due to medical treatment.

3. Serious blood clots after surgery.

4. A wound that splits open after surgery on the abdomen or pelvis.

5. Accidental cuts and tears from medical treatment.

6. Serious complications.

7. Central line-associated blood stream infections.

8. Catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

9. Surgical site infection from colon surgery.

10. Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus blood laboratory-identified events — bloodstream infections.

11. Clostridium difficile laboratory-identified events — intestinal infections.

Hospitals can be eliminated from consideration for the following reasons:

Not reporting on at least four of the surgical complication measures — 1 through 6 — or four of the infection measures — 7 through 11 — or having a patient recommendation rating in the bottom 25 percent nationally, receiving a CMS rating of “Worse than the U.S. National Rate” for any of the above measures or not implementing safe surgery checklists.

For the remaining hospitals, the Women’s Choice Award averaged their rankings for all the measures — weighted slightly toward surgical errors as a result of the WCA’s women’s survey — and cut off the award list only including those that averaged in the top half nationally.

“We honor West Georgia Health for being named and recognized as a hospital of choice among women, for it represents the strongest and most important consumer message in today’s healthcare marketplace when considering that women account for 90 percent of all healthcare decisions,” Delia Passi, founder and CEP of the Women’s Choice Award. “Improving patient safety is not only a matter of error prevention, it’s a focused effort to create the safest patient experience.”

For more information on the 2016 America’s Best Hospitals for Patient Safety visit http://www.womenschoiceaward.com/awarded/healthcare/