ORLANDO, Fla. – St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston recently received three national awards for health-care service quality from Avatar International Inc., a leader in health-care research and consulting.

St. Mary’s was nationally recognized for Best Performance in Emergency Care, Best Performance in Inpatient Care, and Meeting and Exceeding Patient Expectations. The three national awards are based on the results of the hospital’s 2002 patient surveys.

St. Mary’s was judged against 17 other hospitals nationally that have between 201 and 300 beds. A total of 173 hospitals of various sizes participated in the survey analysis, including many Maine hospitals.

In making the announcement, Dr. Michael Everett, Avatar CEO said, “The awards are in recognition of the hospital’s commitment to improving health care in the Androscoggin region. The community should be proud of this achievement and the professionalism demonstrated by staff at St. Mary’s. While winning a national award should not be any hospital’s goal, this award clearly exemplifies service excellence in a concrete, measurable manner.”

In accepting the award, James E. Cassidy, president and CEO of St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, said, “This recognition is testament to the hard work and deep compassion of our physicians, nurses and staff. Quality improvement and patient satisfaction are among the highest priorities at St. Mary’s. Hearing such positive feedback from our patients is encouraging.”

Hospitals that work with Avatar embrace a continuous improvement philosophy. While it is helpful to hospitals to have comparative results at a national level, Avatar’s philosophy is that the most important comparison is how each hospital performs in relationship to the expectations of their patients served.

The criteria for Best Performance in Inpatient Care included: admissions, general care, discharge, pain management, billing, environment, general reputation, treatment of visitors and family, patient expectations, problem resolution, nursing care and meals. Best Performance in Emergency care criteria spanned the entire emergency room experience.

Avatar has been providing improvement training and consulting services for more than 20 years. It works with clients in all sectors of the economy: health care, government, communications, manufacturing, banking, hospitality and other industries.

St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center is a part of Sisters of Charity Health System.