SSM St. Joseph Health Center Named National Leader in Heart Attack Care.

Hospital Receives Award for Quality and Operational Efficiency

ST. CHARLES, Mo. -- St. Joseph Health Center today announced it has received the 2007 Premier Award for Quality for excellence in the care of patients in the area of Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) or heart attack. The award is presented by Premier, the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care.

St. Joseph Health Center is one of three hospitals in the nation to receive this year's award for AMI care. The award means the hospital is a national leader in health care in this area, and has achieved excellence in both quality of care and operational efficiency.

"SSM St. Joseph Health Center has worked for more than 15 years to continuously improve the outcomes of patients with AMI," says Fil Ferrigni, MD, vice president of clinical affairs, "and we are pleased to be recognized by the Premier organization for those efforts."

St. Joseph Health Center was one of the first hospitals in the United States to participate in the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction, and that data has been used to measure and improve AMI management. The hospital uses a process called "Code MI," which improves the amount of time it takes from the time of the patient's arrival in the Emergency Department to the opening of the coronary vessel, commonly called, "door-to-balloon" time. Since implementing the program, St. Joseph has halved the typical door-to-balloon time from about 120 minutes to less than 60 minutes while doubling the number of patients treated.

"We have collaborated with our outstanding medical and surgical staff, Emergency Department physicians, ambulance districts and cardiology specialists to shorten time to treatment and ensure the universal application of recommended therapies for the patients we serve," Dr. Ferrigni says. "Additionally, we have expanded cardiac catheterization services and placed interventional cardiology on 24-hour-a-day call to provide timely revascularization. We coordinate with our ambulance districts to provide early detection and activation of this system before patients even arrive at the hospital.

"And," he says, "our 24-hour Critical Care physician coverage insures the prompt bedside availability of specialty trained physicians to deal with any emergency."

Awarded in six clinical areas, the Premier Award for Quality is based on quality and cost data regularly submitted to Premier for reporting and benchmarking purposes. The award is distinguished by its consideration of performance-based criteria, including clinical quality outcomes, clinical process indicators and resource utilization outcomes.

"St. Joseph Health Center is blessed to have doctors and hospital staff who keep patient safety and outstanding health care as their first priorities," says Sherlyn Hailstone, president of St. Joseph. "Receiving this award reinforces the fact that our staff continuously are striving to offer the highest quality patient care on a daily basis. Premier's measurements and data show that St. Joseph has one of the best outcomes in the nation when it comes to caring for patients with heart attacks, and that's something for which we can all be thankful."

Three winners were chosen from an eligible pool of nearly 400 Premier hospitals. Hospitals that submitted data to Premier's Perspective[TM] database, the most comprehensive clinical, financial and operational comparative database in the nation, between October 2005 and September 2006 were eligible to receive the 2007 Premier Award for Quality.

About Premier, 2006 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient

Serving 1,700 hospitals and more than 46,500 other healthcare sites, Premier is the largest healthcare alliance in the United States dedicated to improving patient outcomes while safely reducing the cost of care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier operates the nation's largest healthcare purchasing network, the most comprehensive repository of hospital clinical and financial information and one of the largest policy-holder owned, hospital professional liability risk-retention groups in healthcare. Headquartered in San Diego, Premier has offices in Charlotte, N.C. and Washington. For more information, visit www.premierhospitalawards.com.

About St. Joseph: SSM St. Joseph Health Center, SSM St. Joseph Hospital West, SSM St. Joseph Medical Park and SSM St. Joseph Health Center-Wentzville (collectively referred to as SSM St. Joseph) are the largest providers of health care in the quad counties.

The facilities are members of SSM Health Care, the first health care winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. SSM St. Joseph is a 2005 Missouri Quality Award recipient. St. Joseph Health Center is the first winner of he MissouriPRO Quality Award, and St. Joseph Hospital West has twice been named one of the 100 Top Hospitals(TM) in America.

For more information about SSM St. Joseph Health Center, SSM St. Joseph Hospital West, SSM St. Joseph Medical Park and SSM St. Joseph Health Center-Wentzville visit www.ssmstjoseph.com.