The SSM Health Care system, including St. Mary’s Health Center in Jefferson City, has earned the 2011 Missouri Quality Award, which is given by the Excellence in Missouri Foundation and honors excellence in organizational performance, leadership, customer service and satisfaction.

In addition, SSM Integrated Health Technologies has also been named a 2011 Missouri Quality Award recipient. IHT employs many of the information, technology and clinical engineering staff on the St. Mary’s hospital campus.

Recognized as one of the strongest state-level quality award programs in the country, the MQA is the official state recognition for excellence in quality leadership. The award is modeled after the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

SSM applied for the MQA as a system this year. MQA examiners visited St. Mary’s, as well as the other 20 SSM locations, held 70 meetings, and talked to more than 1,500 employees from all over the four-state SSM system. Since the MQA's inception in 1992, SSM Health Care organizations have earned the award 14 times. St. Mary’s earned the award in 2009 and did not apply separately in 2010 or 2011.

“The recognition we’ve been receiving tells a story of committed employees and physicians who are doing whatever it takes to provide the best patient care anywhere,” said Brent VanConia, president of St. Mary’s.

St. Mary’s is ranked in the top one percent of hospitals in the nation for quality, based on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data, as well as the number one hospital in Missouri for quality measures as reported by HealthInsight.