Philosophies on Quality

Providing the highest quality medical care is the cornerstone of Health Management’s philosophy. This management philosophy manifests itself in several different ways:

• Recruiting of physicians who practice cutting-edge medical specialties;
• Introducing new or expanded medical services previously unavailable in local communities;
• Adding information technology improvements, new systems and upgrades;
• Investing in the renovation and modernization of aging facilities;
• Purchasing sophisticated medical equipment to help doctors practice up-to-date medicine; and
• Improving our results in physician and patient satisfaction surveys.

Because of our uncompromising insistence on quality, we have consistently turned marginal, non-urban hospitals into leading-edge medical centers. And the medical profession and local communities recognize these successes. We revitalize aging hospitals. Where needed, we also build replacement hospitals. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars for state-of-the-art medical equipment and recruit physicians with a wide variety of advanced specialties to staff our hospitals. These efforts have earned our hospitals and physicians recognition for quality by nationally-recognized organizations.

In 2006 alone, our hospitals earned more than 30 awards—Health Management hospitals were recognized for Joint Commission accreditation, inclusion among the nation’s top 100 hospitals, mention as a top cardiac hospital and as the best places to work for nurses and hospital staff.  While we believe our record for excellence is evident, we are constantly trying to improve how our physicians and patients perceive us.

We continually seek to streamline operations to improve patients’ hospital stays, and we mandate continuing education programs for our nurses and associates. In addition, we continue to make significant capital investments to purchase advanced medical equipment and expand and modernize current facilities.

Capital investments attract high quality physicians to our communities, thereby increasing the spectrum of and access to health care services. We believe better access and providing needed services attracts patients and enlists community support, in turn, leading to greater patient utilization of our hospitals’ medical services, far beyond what was offered before we acquired them.