BJC Hospitals awarded top marks by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the 2024 Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings, which score hospitals in more than 100 quality metrics. CMS evaluates 4,000 hospitals nationwide, including Veterans Administration (VA) medical centers and Department of Defense (DoD) military hospitals.

Overall, fewer than 10% of hospitals reviewed by CMS were awarded five stars in 2024. Five of those were BJC Health System hospitals:

• Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital

• Missouri Baptist Medical Center

• Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City

• Saint Luke’s North

• Saint Luke’s South

“The CMS star ratings program is one of the most widely cited and used reviews of hospitals nationally,” says Chris Miller, MD, BJC Health System chief clinical officer. “In addition to our five hospitals who received five stars, eight additional hospitals received four stars. These ratings, other accolades, and our detailed internal performance metrics, validate our consistent level of extraordinary care we provide.”

Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings summarize existing publicly reported data across five areas of quality, including mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience, and timely and effective care. Summaries translate into a single star rating for each hospital that appears in the CMS Compare tool on the Medicare.gov website, which allows patients to easily compare hospitals.

Missouri Baptist Medical Center president Ann Abad credits hospital team members with this achievement. “CMS’s quality scoring truly spotlights the extraordinary level of care our teams provide day in and day out,” she says. “Their commitment to the highest standard of care for every patient is why BJC continues to be recognized as one of the top health care providers in the country.”

“Our priorities are our patients, our consumers and the communities we serve,” says Jani Johnson, MSN, CEO of Saint Luke’s Central Region, which includes Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City. “We want to be able to make a difference for the people who need us most. These ratings from CMS show our communities they can put their faith in us to get the best possible care.”