MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital was recently recognized as a 2013 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures by The Joint Commission, an accreditor of U.S. health care organizations.

MMH was recognized as part of The Joint Commission’s 2014 annual report “America’s Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety,” for attaining and sustaining excellence in accountability measure performance for pneumonia and surgical care. Massena Memorial Hospital is one of 1,224 hospitals in the United States to achieve the 2013 Top Performer distinction, according to MMH.

The top performer program recognizes hospitals for improving performance on evidence-based interventions that increase the chances of healthy outcomes for patients with certain conditions, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, surgical care, children’s asthma, stroke, venous thromboembolism and perinatal care, as well as for inpatient psychiatric services and immunizations, MMH said.

“This recognition is an organizational effort, not just one department. We always strive to continually improve quality and it takes a team approach,” chief nurse executive Sue Beaulieu said. “Massena Memorial Hospital is dedicated to offering the best patient care, because we have the best staff.”

To be a 2013 top performer, hospitals had to meet three performance criteria based on 2013 accountability measure data, including:

• Achieving cumulative performance of 95 percent or above across all reported accountability measures;

• Achieving performance of 95 percent or above on each and every reported accountability measure where there were at least 30 denominator cases; and

• Having at least one core measure set that had a composite rate of 95 percent or above, and (within that measure set) all applicable individual accountability measures had a performance rate of 95 percent or above.

For more information about the Top Performer program: http://www.jointcommission.org/accreditation/top_performers.aspx