Lovell Federal health care - TRICARE Center receives 5 stars CMS quality ratings

Today, the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center announced that it received a 5 star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This is the first time CMS has included VA facilities in their annual Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings.

The CMS uses five categories –  mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience, and timely and effective care - to award a quality rating for each hospital. The more stars (out of 5), the better a hospital performed on the available quality measures.

Lovell FHCC is the nation’s only fully integrated federal health care system – Department of Defense (Navy) and Department of Veterans Affairs – serving Veterans, military retirees, currently serving military members and their families.

Overall, 67 percent of VA hospitals included in the CMS annual Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings received either 4 or 5 stars, compared to only 41 percent of non-VA hospitals. These findings are the latest in a series of recent evaluations showing the effectiveness of VA health care compared to non-VA health care.

VA hospitals outperformed non-VA hospitals on all 10 core patient satisfaction metrics in the recent Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Star Ratings, and a recent systematic review of more than 40 peer-reviewed studies found that VA health care is consistently as good as — or better than — non-VA health care.

“At Lovell FHCC, our priority every day is to deliver the best possible care to all our patients – Veterans, military retirees, military members and military dependents – who come to us for a wide range of health care and other services,” said Lovell FHCC Director Dr. Robert Buckley.

“We’re very proud of this 5-star rating, and it’s important we celebrate it with our hardworking team of military and civilian staff members who made it possible,” Buckley said. “However, our ongoing commitment to becoming and staying a high reliability organization means there is always work to do. We will continue to learn and improve every day.”

For more information, please contact Lovell FHCC Public Affairs Specialist Jayna Legg, Jayna.legg@va.gov, 224-610-3132, or visit https://www.va.gov/lovell-federal-health-care-va/.

Jayna Legg, Public Affairs Specialist