Jobs at Virginia Mason Medical Center are coveted positions. Why? Because the Leapfrog Group has announced that Virginia Mason (along with University of Maryland Medical Center) has been awarded a Top Hospital of the Decade award.

Leah Binder, Leapfrog CEO, says that the top notch performance of the hospital is a tribute not only to the employers but to the Boards of Trustees and the management and employee teams at the hospital.

Describing Virginia Mason efforts as “extraordinary in every sense of the word,” Leapfrog’s Board Chair David Knowlton agrees. “Hospitals like Virginia Mason…are blazing a trail and have committed themselves to change, accountability and transparency. They have done the work that others must now undertake.”

In awarding the honors, Leapfrog focused on three critical areas of patient safety and quality. These included how patients fare (including stats like mortality for common high-risk surgeries), resources used to care for patients measured by length of stay and readmission rates and management practices that promote safety and quality (including the adoption of a computerized physician order entry to reduce medication errors and properly staffing ICU’s with specially trained doctors and nurses).

Some specific examples of how Virginia Mason rated in the high-risk procedures include:

1. Heart Bypass Surgery- VM improved from second best quartile to top quartile for performance and in the top quartile for cost of care.
2. Weight Loss Surgery- VM remained in the top quartile for performance. They performed 292 surgeries and the Leapfrog standard is 125.

Some specifics examples regarding patient safety include:

1. Prevention of Medication Errors- VM remained in the top quartile for performance and evaluated high on the use and performance of a CPOE system.
2. Managing Serious Errors- Following the policy of Leapfrog to admit when mistakes are made, VM maintained this policy as well as other policies implemented to improve patient safety.
3. Steps to Avoid Harm- Following 17 safe/best practices determined by the National Quality Forum, VM reduced the amounts of catheter-related infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, assessing and preventing blood clots and more.

Virginia Mason Board Chair, Carolyn Corvi says, “It’s hard to find the words to convey just how proud I am to serve this organization as a community advocate. The Top Hospital of the Decade honor is well-deserved and speaks to the dedication and commitment by all team members…this confirms, without question, that Virginia Mason’s patients are truly the focus of everything that our team members do.”

> View all job opportunities at Virginia Mason
> Learn more about Virginia Mason

We are pleased to introduce New York-Presbyterian Hospital as a new Featured Employer here at Hospital Dream Jobs. NewYork-Presbyterian has extremely high levels of both employee and patient satisfaction scores. They maintain these scores while serving over 2 million patients a year.

They are the largest not-for-profit academic medical center in the nation and last month, they received the prestigious ranking of #6 in America’s Best Hospitals list by U.S. News & World Report.

To help job seekers learn more about their culture, career areas and upcoming events, NewYork-Presbyterian has created a new career website. This site offers a wealth of information and gives job seekers an opportunity to hear first-hand stories from hospital employees.

Edy, a Clinical Laboratory Chief Technologist, says that the people she works with are truly quality people, focused on patients. On her video, she shares that one Friday evening, an Oncologist approached her with a baby’s bone marrow aspirate in hand. “I need to treat this patient today,” he said. The Oncologist, Pathologist and Edy sat side-by-side to run the needed tests far into the evening so that the baby could receive care that night. “I’m a mother.” She says, “And that baby is someone’s loved one.”

Marisol, a Physician’s Assistant in the surgical department agrees. “The teamwork is amazing.” She thrives on connecting with her co-workers and also enjoys the annual Employee Recognition Day. “The care here, for all people, is outstanding.” She says, “The best compliment is when a patient tells me that they are comfortable and happy. They also like that I can speak Spanish. And everyone that I work with here is so very compassionate and caring. It makes a big difference for me.”

In spite of high unemployment rates and budget cuts at medical centers nationwide, NewYork-Presbyterian continues to hire and support employee benefits and programs. In 2009, the hospital hired 1,918 new employees, including 658 new nurses, and they expect to hire more than 1,900 employees this year. It’s obvious that they value their team members, patients and quality care.

Search for current job openings at NewYork-Presbyterian.