Eunice, Ville Platte medical centers receive 4-star Medicare rating

Mercy Regional Medical Center and Acadian Medical Center, which includes campuses in Eunice and Ville Platte, earned a four-star rating on Medicare’s Hospital Compare website.
The site ranks hospitals from one to five stars with five stars being the highest.
Mercy Regional Medical Center earned three stars in the 2015 rating.
Medicare’s Hospital Compare website – at medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html – has has added overall star ratings to help the public better understand which hospitals are top performers, which are average and which need improvement, according to Bob Moos, Southwest regional public affairs officer for the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
In an emailed statement, Mercy officials stated, “Mercy Regional Medical Center and Acadian Medical Center are committed to delivering high-quality, compassionate care and ensuring that all patients, visitors and employees have a positive experience at our hospital. We are extremely pleased by the 4-star rating that our system was given through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings program and attribute our success to our hospital-wide commitment to quality.
In recent years, Mercy and Acadian hospitals have implemented a number of initiatives designed to enhance quality and improve the overall patient experience. These include bedside shift reporting, executive rounding, and communication boards – all of which help enhance communications and improve patient safety. We have also added a comprehensive electronic medical record system and implemented barcode scanning to ensure accuracy in medication administration.
“At Mercy and Acadian hospitals, we consider it a privilege to serve the health care needs of our community. We will continue monitoring our progress and exploring new ways to further improve patient care, now and long into the future.
“The Hospital Compare site already enjoys a solid reputation with the public, showing how 4,600 hospitals scored on various indicators of quality care, he stated. You can compare hospitals on the basis of such factors as clinical outcomes, customer satisfaction and patient safety, he stated.”
The new overall star ratings offer a snapshot of particular hospitals’ quality of care, by summing up 64 individual measures of hospital performance already posted on the website. The ratings reflect such factors as how often patients get infections after surgery, how long patients must wait in the emergency department before seeing a doctor or nurse, and how likely patients are to get readmitted to the hospital after a heart attack.
The stars take into account the mix of patients at a hospital, so that those facilities with a high percentage of sicker patients aren’t rated lower than those that handle more run-of-the-mill cases.
Medicare assigned stars to 3,662 Medicare-certified hospitals nationwide. Another 937 couldn’t be included, mostly because they didn’t have enough data to properly evaluate them. They may have been too new or too small and, therefore, had too few cases on which to base ratings. The ratings will be updated quarterly on the website, as the government continues to collect the most recent data.
Nationally, 102 hospitals received five stars, 934 rated four stars, 1,770 scored three stars, 723 received two stars, and 133 had just one star.
The 84 rated Louisiana hospitals scored an average of 3.2 stars for overall quality of care – squarely in the middle. Two received five stars, 24 rated four stars, 45 scored three stars, 11 received two stars, and two had just one star.
The two Louisiana hospitals that received Medicare’s top rating of five stars were Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital in Alexandria and Specialists Hospital in Shreveport.
Hospital Compare’s new overall star ratings follow last year’s introduction of star ratings that looked only at patient satisfaction.
By adding star ratings to its Compare websites, Medicare is trying to help the public make more informed decisions about health care. The public reporting also gives low-performing providers a compelling incentive to improve their practices and procedures and, hence, their scores, Moos stated.
Nursing Home Compare, Home Health Compare and the Medicare Plan Finder already use star ratings to help the public check out health care providers and insurers and choose one with quality in mind, Moos stated.
Visit with your doctor about the best hospital for you, Moos stated. Research shows that some hospitals do better than others at treating certain conditions. And talk to family members and friends about what they liked or disliked about their recent hospital stays and which facilities they’d recommend.
Medicare also recently updated its “Guide to Choosing a Hospital,” which includes a checklist of questions to ask your doctor and explains how to find the hospital that’s the right fit for you. A free copy can be downloaded at medicare.gov or requested by calling Medicare at 1-800-633-4227.
Here’s the complete list of the 84 rated Louisiana hospitals; 33 other hospitals were not rated:

Abbeville – Abbeville General Hospital -- 3 stars.
Alexandria – Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital – 5 stars.
Alexandria – Christus St. Frances Cabrini Hospital -- 3 stars.
Alexandria – Rapides Regional Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Bastrop – Morehouse General Hospital -- 2 stars.
Baton Rouge – Woman’s Hospital -- 3 stars.
Baton Rouge – Baton Rouge General Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Baton Rouge – Ochsner Medical Center – Baton Rouge -- 4 stars.
Baton Rouge – Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center -- 2 stars.
Bogalusa – Our Lady of the Angels Hospital – 3 stars.
Bossier City – Willis Knighton Bossier Health Center -- 4 stars.
Chalmette – St. Bernard Parish Hospital -- 3 stars.
Columbia – Citizens Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Columbia – Caldwell Memorial Hospital -- 4 stars.
Covington – St. Tammany Parish Hospital -- 4 stars.
Covington – Lakeview Regional Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Crowley – Acadia General Hospital -- 2 stars.
Cut Off – Lady of the Sea General Hospital -- 4 stars.
Deridder – Beauregard Memorial Hospital -- 3 stars.
Farmerville – Union General Hospital – 3 stars.
Franklin – Franklin Foundation Hospital – 3 stars.
Gonzales – St. Elizabeth Hospital -- 3 stars.
Hammond – North Oaks Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Homer –Claiborne Memorial Medical Center – 4 stars.
Houma – Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Houma – Terrebonne General Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Jena – LaSalle General Hospital – 3 stars.
Jennings – Jennings American Legion Hospital -- 3 stars.
Kenner – Ochsner Medical Center - Kenner -- 3 stars.
Lacombe – Louisiana Heart Hospital -- 4 stars.
Lafayette – Heart Hospital of Lafayette -- 4 stars.
Lafayette – Lafayette General Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Lafayette – Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Lafayette – University Hospital and Clinics -- 3 stars.
Lafayette – Women’s and Children’s Hospital – 3 stars.
Lake Charles – Lake Area Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Lake Charles – Lake Charles Memorial Hospital -- 3 stars.
Lake Charles – Christus St. Patrick Hospital -- 3 stars.
Lake Providence – East Carroll Parish Hospital -- 3 stars.
Leesville – Doctors Hospital at Deer Creek -- 3 stars.
Leesville – Byrd Regional Hospital -- 3 stars.
Luling – St. Charles Parish Hospital -- 3 stars.
Lutcher – St. James Parish Hospital -- 4 stars.
Mamou – Savoy Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Mansfield – DeSoto Regional Health System -- 3 stars.
Many – Sabine Medical Center – 2 stars.
Marksville – Avoyelles Hospital -- 3 stars.
Marrero – West Jefferson Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Metairie – East Jefferson General Hospital -- 4 stars.
Minden – Minden Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Monroe -- P & S Surgical Hospital -- 4 stars.
Monroe – St. Francis Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Monroe – University Health Conway -- 3 stars.
Morgan City – Teche Regional Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Natchitoches – Natchitoches Regional Medical Center – 4 stars.
New Iberia – Iberia General Hospital and Medical Center -- 3 stars.
New Iberia – Dauterive Hospital -- 3 stars.
New Orleans – Touro Infirmary -- 3 stars.
New Orleans – Tulane Medical Center – 2 stars.
New Orleans – Ochsner Medical Center -- 2 stars.
New Orleans – University Medical Center New Orleans – 2.
Oak Grove – West Carroll Memorial Hospital -- 3 stars.
Oakdale – Oakdale Community Hospital – 3 stars.
Olla – Hardtner Medical Center – 3 stars.
Opelousas – Opelousas General Health System -- 3 stars.
Raceland – Ochsner St. Anne General Hospital -- 3 stars.
Rayville – Richardson Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Ruston – Northern Louisiana Medical Center – 2 stars.
Shreveport – Specialists Hospital Shreveport -- 5 stars.
Shreveport – Christus Health Shreveport — Bossier -- 4 stars.
Shreveport – Willis Knighton Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Shreveport – University Health Shreveport -- 1 stars.
Slidell – Southern Surgical Hospital -- 4 stars.
Slidell – Ochsner Medical Center - Northshore -- 3 stars.
Slidell – Slidell Memorial Hospital -- 3 stars.
Springhill – Springhill Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Sulphur – West Calcasieu Cameron Hospital -- 4 stars.
Thibodaux – Thibodaux Regional Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Ville Platte – Mercy Regional Medical Center -- 4 stars.
Vivian – North Caddo Medical Center – 2 stars.
West Monroe – Glenwood Regional Medical Center -- 2 stars.
Winnfield – Winn Parish Medical Center -- 3 stars.
Winnsboro – Franklin Medical Center --2 stars.
Zachary – Lane Regional Medical Center -- 1 stars.