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St. James Parish Hospital

  • Location: Lutcher, LA
  • Award: Healthcare Organization of the Month
  • Awarded: August 2015

Our Mission
St. James Parish Hospital is committed to providing excellent, quality and compassionate care.

Our Vision
Our goal is to be the community’s first choice for primary healthcare needs.

Our Story
St. James Parish Hospital is a 25-bed critical access hospital in Louisiana offering a growing range of inpatient and outpatient services to the southeast river parishes. St. James Parish Hospital originally opened in 1955 and has served the community for nearly 60 years since. In 2008, a new state-of-the-art facility was constructed offering room for growth and expansion. Less than five years later, the hospital opened its first medical plaza to house an array of hospital-owned practices and specialty clinics to better serve the needs of patients. Most recently, St. James Parish Hospital purchased two off-site clinics to house new practices and services.

From a 24-hour emergency room to state-of-the-art surgical suites and cutting-edge laboratory and radiology departments, the hospital delivers emergency and routine medical care by highly-trained physicians and nurses utilizing some of the latest technology. Throughout its history, St. James Parish Hospital has remained focused on bringing more services home to its community. While comparable in scope of services to larger facilities, the hospital’s smaller size allows the physicians and staff to provide personalized, quality medical services in a cost-effective manner. In addition, much of the hospital’s medical staff brings knowledge and experience from other world-class organizations.

“Like most hospitals, St. James Parish Hospital is committed to service, compassion, safety and quality, but we take pride in offering a special level of care that only a small hospital can provide,” said Mary Ellen Pratt, CEO. “Our size allows us to treat our patients like family and offer an environment that truly feels like home. We believe it is important to offer service with a smile and get to know our patients on a more personal, compassionate level. We truly live by the motto large enough to serve, small enough to care.”

Our Partnership
St. James Parish Hospital is still in the beginning of its journey with the Studer Group which began at the end of 2013 when all leaders were introduced to the organization at the What’s Right in Healthcare Conference. This education kicked-off the hospital’s first year with the Studer Group which began by instituting the Leadership Management System (LEM). For the first time, leaders at St. James Parish Hospital helped create measurable goals that would be used to evaluate their performance in an effort to achieve the organizational goals of the entire hospital—financial stability, patient satisfaction, quality, employee satisfaction, growth, etc. Armed with Studer tools such as LEM, Employee Rounding, Leader Rounding, the Stop Light Report and the Monthly Meeting Model, St. James Parish Hospital went on to achieve several of the organizational goals set forth in its first year as a Studer Hospital. One goal was to improve our inpatient satisfaction scores to the 75th percentile. At the start of the Studer engagement we were at the 48th percentile with a mean score of 87.1. As of June 2015 our interim scores place us at the 92nd percentile with a mean of 91.

Another important goal was to achieve greater than the state or national average for CMS core measures. At the end of 2013 we achieved this for 72% of the core measures we monitor. Even with adding 25% more measures to our monitoring program, we still achieved our goal of achieving greater than the state or national average for 87% of the measures.

  End of 2013 (Before Studer) Mar-Apr 2015 (After Studer)
Greater than State or Nat'l Average 26 39
Number of Measures 36 45
Percentage 72% 87%


Reducing harm by 40% was another LEM goal. By utilizing the tool of routinely rounding on patients, we have been able prevent patient harm by reducing readmissions and falls by greater than 40%

  Start Jul-14 Jun-15 Total Reduction
Fall per 1000 Patient Days 1.98% 1.35% 1.01% 49%
Readmissions 6.25% 2.30% 1.90% 70%


As a result, employees earned an incentive-bonus based on these quality and patient satisfaction goals outlined in LEM and the hospital was awarded the “Best in Employee Satisfaction” distinction by Avatar.

“We still have a long way to go on this never-ending journey to provide the highest quality, most cost-effective and compassionate healthcare, but with the support of Studer, we look forward to taking on this challenge for our community,” said CEO Mary Ellen Pratt.

Awards & Accolades
2015

  • CMS 5-Star Quality Rating (1 of only 3 full-service hospitals in the state to earn this distinction)
  • CEO Mary Ellen Pratt Recognized by Becker Hospital Review as a "Top 50 Rural Hospital CEO to Know"
  • Louisiana Life "Patient's Pick"
  • Gold Aster National Marketing Award for Hospital Website
  • 2015 Studer Group Healthcare Organization of the Month Winner
2014
  • Studer Group Excellence in Patient Care Award for HCAHPS
  • Avatar Best in Class Employer
  • Louisiana Life Top Hospital
  • Gold Aster National Marketing Award for 2013 Community Benefit Report
  • Seven Louisiana Hospital Association Pelican Awards
  • Best of Show LHA Marketing Award
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