DUARTE, Calif., December 2, 2009 — City of Hope has received the 2009 Summit Award for Inpatient Care from Press Ganey Associates Inc., a health care survey, evaluation and consultation firm. The Summit Award, the health care satisfaction industry’s most coveted symbol of achievement, recognizes top performing facilities that sustain the highest level of customer satisfaction for three or more consecutive years. City of Hope is one of just 74 facilities across the nation, and the only one in Southern California, to receive the 2009 honor.

Richard B. Siegrist Jr., president and chief executive officer of Press Ganey, said, "We are proud partners of City of Hope, which continues to maintain a high level of patient satisfaction. Their efforts benefit Southern California and lead to improved delivery of health care."

Press Ganey currently partners with more than 10,000 health care facilities — including over 40 percent of U.S. hospitals — to measure and improve the quality of their care. The company’s databases are the largest in the industry, and allow facilities nationwide to benchmark their results against peer organizations.

Initiatives City of Hope has undertaken to maintain exceptional inpatient satisfaction include continual leadership involvement to improve quality of care, a vigorous hiring and training process for patient care positions and providing patients and their caregivers a coordinated, interdisciplinary plan of care with clearly-defined goals at least once a day.

“This prestigious honor is the result of the dedication and commitment of City of Hope physicians, nurses and staff who consistently demonstrate their dedication to our mission, our patients and their families,” said Alexandra Levine, M.D., City of Hope’s chief medical officer. “We are proud to be recognized with this prestigious accolade and are committed to continue improving our quality of care.”

Additional information on the Press Ganey Summit Award is available at their Web site here.