Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Hospitals Rated Among Top Performers in Nation by Healthgrades

May 11, 2021

Tacoma and Seattle, Washington - Virginia Mason Franciscan Health hospitals are ranked among the top in the nation for patient experience and patient safety by Healthgrades, the leading online service that connects patients and providers.

Healthgrades announced today that:

• Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle achieved the Healthgrades 2021 Outstanding Patient Experience Award. This distinction places the medical center among the top 15 percent of hospitals nationwide for patient experience for the ninth consecutive year. Also, Virginia Mason is the only hospital in the Seattle region to receive the Outstanding Patient Experience Award for nine straight years (2013-2021). The Seattle region is the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue core based statistical area defined by the US Office of Management and Budget.

• St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way and St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor earned the Healthgrades 2021 Patient Safety Excellence Award. This distinction places the three hospitals among the top 10 percent of all short-term acute care facilities reporting patient safety data evaluated by Healthgrades. St. Francis Hospital has received the Patient Safety Excellence Award for two consecutive years (2020-2021) and St. Anthony Hospital has received the Patient Safety Excellence Award for three consecutive years (2019-2021).

“The recognition of our hospitals by Healthgrades is further evidence of our team’s dedication to raising the standard of care we provide to our communities,” said Ketul J. Patel, CEO, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. “Delivering high-quality, safe care is a hallmark of our health system.”

“I am very proud of the extraordinary effort by all of our team members to deliver on our commitment to quality, safety and patient care excellence for every patient every day, especially during the continuing COVID-19 pandemic,” said Gary S. Kaplan, MD, CEO, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health.

For its analysis of patient experience, Healthgrades evaluated 3,297 hospitals that submitted at least 100 patient experience surveys to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, covering admissions from January 2019 to December 2019.

For its analysis of patient safety, Healthgrades determined that the Patient Safety Excellence Award recipient hospitals demonstrated superior performance in patient safety within the Medicare population, as measured by objective outcomes — risk-adjusted patient safety indicator (PSI) rates — for 13 PSIs defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality during the study period (2017 through 2019). View Healthgrades hospital quality methodologies.

“Hospitals that have received both the Healthgrades 2021 Patient Safety Award and Healthgrades 2021 Outstanding Patient Experience Award are not only providing exceptional patient care, but doing so year after year,” said Brad Bowman, MD, chief medical officer, Healthgrades. “Given the changing healthcare landscape amidst COVID-19, it’s more important now than ever for patients to pay attention to hospital quality when researching where to seek care. We congratulate these organizations for their commitment to hospital quality.”

Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is an integrated health system serving the Puget Sound region of Washington state, offering access to some of the country’s most prestigious experts and hospitals that are internationally known for superior quality. With a team of 18,000 team members, including nearly 5,000 employed physicians and affiliated providers, we unite the brightest health care minds in the region to provide world-class clinical excellence at 11 hospitals and nearly 300 sites of care throughout the Puget Sound area. We are proud to be the home of Bailey-Boushay House, the first skilled-nursing and outpatient chronic care management program in the United States designed specifically to meet the needs of people with HIV/AIDS, and Benaroya Research Institute, which is internationally recognized for autoimmune disease research. We embrace our community’s uniquely vibrant, active culture by providing holistic, personalized and patient-centered care. We are committed to caring for the most vulnerable in our communities, including the poor and underserved, providing more than $300 million in community benefit – free, subsidized, and reduced cost health care and programs.

Virginia Mason Franciscan Health was formed in 2021 by bringing together two leading health systems in Washington state. Our family of hospitals includes Virginia Mason Hospital, Seattle; St. Anthony Hospital, Gig Harbor; St. Clare Hospital, Lakewood; St. Elizabeth Hospital, Enumclaw; St. Francis Hospital, Federal Way; St. Joseph Medical Center, Tacoma; St. Michael Medical Center, Silverdale; St. Anne Hospital, Burien; Rehabilitation Hospital, Tacoma; and Wellfound Behavioral Health Hospital, Tacoma. Learn more at vmfh.org.