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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CEP Awarded First Out-of-State Contract in Oregon; Joseph Howton, MD, Accepts Position as Medical Director at Adventist Medical Center in Portland.

Contact: Sarah Hay
800.476.1504
hays@cep.com

(November 2005, Emeryville, California)-The Emergency Department (ED) at Marin General Hospital recently received the 2005 Patient Satisfaction of the Year Award from California Emergency Physicians (CEP) Medical Group.

The award was based on a survey of patients treated at CEP-contracted Emergency Departments. Patients rated their overall experience in the ED, and results indicated that Marin General Hospital ranked number one.

High patient satisfaction at Marin General Hospital may be attributed to various factors, including implementation of a Rapid Medical Evaluation (RME) program, aimed at decreasing patient wait time in the ED. Since then, the average wait time has dropped from 52 minutes to 32 minutes. Additionally, the percentage of patients who left without being seen (LWBS) remains consistently below 1%, while the national average for Emergency Departments is 2%.

In 2005, the ED also introduced Physician Assistants (PAs) to the ED and began a call-back program, both of which may have contributed to greater patient satisfaction.

Moreover, on a Hospital Administrator Survey, Marin General Hospital received top scores for “Overall Performance,” “Emergency Department Management,” “Patient Satisfaction,” and “Nursing Support.” Speaking on the site improvements, David Bradley, CEO of Marin Community Health, remarked, “We are appreciative of the CEP team.”

Finally, the ED scored highly on “Overall Atmosphere” and “Sense of Team” in a survey of relationships between nurses and physicians, which can also lead to better service and patient satisfaction.

Says Jim Dietz, MD, Medical Director, “I am very proud of our team. We are keenly aware of the importance of patient satisfaction, both in terms of truly providing a satisfying experience and in being able to show the numbers that prove this. If I had to suggest one component of our process that has made the largest difference, it would be the Patient Satisfaction Call-Back program. Many of the letters we receive specifically cite the phone calls and I believe that this interaction with the patient has heightened the physicians’ sensitivity to the needs of our patients. It has become a very satisfying feature of our care.”

“This award represents acknowledgement of the outstanding work of the entire Emergency Department team,” says Regional Director, Jay Kaplan, MD. “By developing a collaborative practice among physicians, nurses, technicians, unit secretaries, registrars, and all hospital personnel who assist in the care of ED patients, the Marin General ED has created a great place for patients to come for care, for staff to come to work, and for physicians to practice medicine.”

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Marin General Hospital is a 14-bed ED and Level 3 Trauma Center with an annual volume of approximately 42,000 patients. CEP was founded in 1975 and is a premier provider of physician staffing, management, and consulting services for Emergency Department and Ambulatory Care Practices in California, Oregon and Georgia. CEP includes more than 1,000 providers who treat nearly 2.5 million patients each year. For more information on CEP, visit their website at www.cep.com.