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Aspirus Receives WCHQ Top Quality Honors

July 30, 2020

Recognized for high performance for depression screening rate

The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ) recognized Aspirus health system and the Aspirus endocrinology clinic as top performers based on their rates of screening patients for depression.

For the second year in a row, Aspirus ranked first among all Wisconsin health systems that report their depression screening rate on WCHQ.org. One out of six adults will have depression some time in their lives. Depression complicates chronic conditions and it can contribute to substance abuse and misuse problems. Research shows that 80 percent of patients with depression will improve with treatment.

Gabrielle Rude, Ph.D., WCHQ director of practice transformation and incoming CEO, presented the awards at a virtual event held July 30. Accepting on behalf of Aspirus and the Endocrinology Clinic was Billi Jo Leopold, interim clinic director, Aspirus Medical Group.

WCHQ annually honors a select number of member organizations for superior clinical performance and patient outcomes.  However, this is the first year more than 300 individual clinics were ranked on their scores across a broad range of clinical quality related WCHQ measures.  

“Aspirus is doing an outstanding job of screening their patients for depression and enabling early interventions. It takes perseverance and hard work to hard wire processes in place to ensure patients are screened,” according to WCHQ President/CEO Chris Queram. “Aspirus is not only able to improve the quality of care they provide their patients, but they have sustained it across their system. By working with WCHQ and collaborating with other medical professionals across the state, they are improving the quality of care in Wisconsin.”

WCHQ is dedicated to helping health care professionals improve the quality and affordability of health care through collaboration, sharing best practices, and publicly reporting information that health care organizations can use to benchmark and compare their performance. WCHQ’s membership includes Wisconsin’s integrated health systems, hospitals, medical clinics and independent physician groups. Visit WCHQ.org for more information.

Contact: Mary Kay Fahey

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