ATTAINING THE HIGHEST STANDARDS
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is proud of the recognition and rankings it has attained. At the same time, Wake Forest Baptist is continually evaluating its service and treatment results, to ensure patient safety and quality of care. We are committed to achieving the highest standards of patient care.
Recognition and Rankings
Academic Medical Center Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, the only academic medical center in western North Carolina, has specialists in more than 85 areas of medicine, the region’s only pediatric hospital, Brenner Children’s Hospital, and its only Comprehensive Cancer Center as designated by the National Cancer Institute.
U.S. News Ranking: Top 50 N.C. Baptist Hospital, the teaching hospital of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, has ranked in the Top 50 every year since 1993. The analysis includes more than 6,000 U.S. hospitals.
JCAHO Accreditation N.C. Baptist Hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health care Organizations (JCAHO)
Level I Trauma Center N.C. Baptist Hospital has North Carolina’s first Trauma Center verified as a Level I Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons. Ground and air transport are available.
Specialty Services
- The Comprehensive Cancer Center at Wake Forest University is one of only 39 cancer centers across the nation designated comprehensive by the National Cancer Institute, and is named one of the nation’s best for cancer care by U.S.News & World Report. Its new outpatient facility includes numerous multidisciplinary clinics and is among the most advanced treatment centers in the nation.
- Brenner Children’s Hospital, part of Wake Forest Baptist, is western North Carolina’s only full-service pediatric hospital.
- The Heart Center of Wake Forest Baptist was named by Good Housekeeping as one of America’s best heart hospitals for women in 2004.
Patient Satisfaction Wake Forest Baptist is ranked in the top 6 percent of all American hospitals, and the top 3 percent for teaching hospitals, for patient satisfaction, according to Press Ganey. (since 2002)
Magnet Nursing Award Wake Forest Baptist was first in the Carolinas, and one of the first 14 in the nation to win this prestigious endorsement of nursing quality in 1999. It was also first in North Carolina to be accredited a second time.
Top Doctors Wake Forest Baptist has 149 doctors listed in the 2005 edition of Best Doctors in America® -- nearly 90 percent of the area doctors named.
Quality of Care Initiatives
Quality of Care Council Wake Forest Baptist is committed to delivering exceptional, quality care. In 2002, Wake Forest Baptist began a formal evidence-based quality-improvement program to determine and adopt the “best practices” that achieve the best results nationwide. Now under the aegis of the WFUBMC Quality of Care Council, this effort embraces new measures recommended by internal task forces as well as guideline from the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and the Institute of Healthcare Improvement to ensure the best practice of medicine. WFUBMC is participating in the IHI “100,000 Lives Campaign,” and is committed to sharing research with other institutions to advance patient safety and quality. An ongoing internal quality and patient safety awareness campaign (Quality is Our Difference) communicates the broad array of safety measures being implemented across the Medical Center, from rapid response nursing teams to fast, Web-based error reporting to medication reconciliation protocols.
JCAHO National Patient Safety Goals Wake Forest Baptist has adopted these goals and is implementing programs to ensure enforcement. Goals include improving the accuracy of patient identification; improving the effectiveness of communication among caregivers and implementing a standardized “hand-off,” improving the safety of using medications; reducing the risk of health care-acquired infections; reconciling medications across the continuum of care; reducing the risk of patient falls.
Joint Quality Initiative This national effort allows hospitals to publicly report quality performance data on 10 measures for three conditions: acute myocardial infarction, heart failure and pneumonia. For the three core measures publicly reported on the JCAHO “Quality Check” site, WFUBMC is above the performance of most JCAHO accredited organizations for heart attack and heart failure care – denoted by plus signs, and is similar to most JCAHO accredited organizations for pneumonia care – denoted by a checkmark.