SYLACAUGA — Coosa Valley Medical Center is one of 26 hospitals nationwide to be recognized for excellence in critical care.The hospital was presented the award recently in St. Louis, Mo., by VHA Inc. at its Leadership Conference for providing excellent care to patients in its intensive care units.
The 2006 VHA Leadership Award for Clinical Excellence honors organizations that have distinguished themselves from other VHA members by achieving national performance standards in specific clinical categories.
VHA is based in Irving, Texas. It is a national alliance that provides supply chain management services and supports the formation of regional and national networks to help members improve their clinical and economic performance.
Only three hospitals received awards from VHA and only two received the critical care awards. The other hospital was in Florence.
Glenn Sisk, president and CEO of Coosa Valley Medical Center, said, “This award validates the dedicated focus of our clinical staff and physicians to improve the care provided to our intensive care patients. By applying evidence-based measures into a critical care patient’s plan of care, we are able to monitor and measure the overall rate of improvement in our patients.”
The hospital has created rapid response teams throughout the facility to help with critical care patients.
“These experts in critical care intervene when a patient’s condition changes. We give the medical staff here the credit for what has been done to achieve this award,” Sisk said.
Amy Price, vice president of patient care, said the award recognizes the hospital staff’s ability to take care of critically ill patients.
“Our response time in critical cases has improved,” Sisk said.
Sisk and Price said this award is “a big award for a small hospital.”
They credited the nurses and doctors for working together to respond to emergency and critical situations at the hospital.
“We’re excited about this award,” Price said.
Rapid Response Team members at the hospital are William Wood, Tonya Henderson, Quincy Leach, Heather Bennett, Nyree Conville, Chuck Terrell, Barbara Spicer, Kathy Russell, Meg Motes, Stephanie Terrell and Marsha Kelley.
