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Richard Larson, MD, Chief of Emergency Medicine and Stephen Wright, MD, Chief of Medicine at Faulkner Hospital were guest speakers at a May 15 MassHealth Hospital Quality Forum sponsored by MASSPRO and the Center for Health Policy and Research at UMASS Medical School.

Doctors Larson and Wright were invited to give a presentation titled "Implementation of Practices that Contribute to Improved Performance in Pneumonia Care", as a result of Faulkner's distinction of 100% compliance in the JCAHO Pneumonia Core Measures.

Pneumonia Core Measures include oxygenation assessment, blood cultures, antibiotics within 4 hours, antibiotic selection, smoking assessment and vaccination status (pneumococcal vaccine and influenza vaccine). The University Health Consortium (UHC) mean scores are very good with none below 98.9%. However, since January 2004, Faulkner Hospital has scored consistently at 100%. Other hospitals want to know how this has been achieved. More