EASLEY — Premier, Inc. has recognized Baptist Easley as a QUEST Award for High-value Healthcare finalist for delivering high-quality, cost-effective healthcare.

Only 37 hospitals received finalist recognition for achieving top performance in any five of the six areas measured in Premier’s QUEST collaborative, including harm, mortality, readmissions, costs, patient experience and evidence-based care. Only three hospitals in South Carolina were QUEST finalists.

Baptist Easley was honored during Premier’s annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition in San Antonio.

“Participation in this collaborative reinforces our commitment to reliably deliver the best care experience to the communities we serve,” Baptist Easley CEO Michael Batchelor said. “We’re proud to be a finalist for the QUEST Award as we continue down our path of improving patient outcomes.”

Specifically, Baptist Easley was recognized for:

• Obtaining a mortality rate at least 15 percent less than expected;

• Reliably delivering all evidence-based care measures to patients in the areas of heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care at least 95 percent of the time;

• Improving the hospital experience so that patients favorably rate their stay and would recommend the facility to others at least 73 percent of the time;

• Reducing preventable harm events; and

• Obtaining a readmissions rate at least 11 percent less than expected.

QUEST is a performance improvement collaborative of approximately 350 hospitals working to make healthcare safer, more efficient and consistently effective. Approximately 330 QUEST hospitals were eligible for the QUEST Award for High-value Healthcare.

“QUEST hospitals have a really fresh perspective on the state of healthcare today, which they’re using to rethink the way care is provided and design innovative changes that impact our future,” Premier president and CEO Susan DeVore said. “It’s no easy task for health systems to do this on their own, so they work together to capitalize on the power of information. Our vision is to outperform this industry together, on our own terms, which is exactly what Baptist Easley is doing. Premier congratulates them for the fantastic achievements they’ve made.”

The nation’s leading hospitals created QUEST to set new standards in healthcare that ensure the delivery of high-quality, cost-effective care. In five and a half years, they have saved more than 136,000 lives and $11.6 billion.

Top performance thresholds were established at the top quartile of performance from a baseline period in all measures except cost of care, which was based on the median of the total inpatient cost per case mix adjusted discharge. Top performance methodology for each dimension varied depending on the unique measure calculation and methodology.

For more than 50 years, Baptist Easley Hospital has provided care for generations of Upstate families. Baptist Easley, operating independently, is a partnership between Palmetto Health and Greenville Health System.

Baptist Easley was the first hospital ever to achieve the top tenth percentile in patient, physician, and employee satisfaction in the same year and thus to be awarded the inaugural Press Ganey Partner of Choice Award. Baptist Easley was named a 2012 Top Hospital by the Leapfrog Group and a 2012 Top Performer by The Joint Commission.