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AUGUSTA — VA Maine Healthcare System is now a five-star facility and ranks 16 out of 146 VA Medical Centers across the country, according to data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The data comes from SAIL, an internal scorecard for VA that measures, evaluates and benchmarks quality and efficiency at VA Medical Centers, according to a news release from VA Maine Healthcare Systems.
VA Maine, headquartered in Togus, is in the top ranked group in the country for veterans’ perception about access in specialty care clinics; veterans’ rating of specialty care providers; prevention of health care acquired infections in acute care; patient’s perception of access in primary care; unexpected deaths at 30 days post discharge.
VA Maine HCS was one of the facilities that made positive strides in the benchmarks and is striving to continue progress, the release said. One key area of improvement is inpatient flow, which includes length of stay and readmission rates. Length of stay decreased by 20 percent and readmission rates decreased by 3 percent.
Additionally, VA Maine maintained a zero percent hospital acquired infection rate for central line infections, catheter associated urinary tract infections, ventilator associated pneumonias, and MRSA infections for the past two years.
“We are very proud of our team at VA Maine and look forward to continuing to improve our processes, increase efficiencies and always put the Veteran first,” said Daniel Dücker, interim medical center director.
The quarterly SAIL report, which has been released publicly since 2015, assesses 25 quality metrics and two efficiency and productivity metrics in areas such as death rate, complications and patient satisfaction, as well as overall efficiency and physician capacity at 146 VAMCs. It is used as an internal learning tool for VA leaders and personnel to pinpoint and study VAMCs with high quality and efficiency scores, both within specific measured areas and overall. The data is also used to identify best practices and develop strategies to help troubled facilities improve.
