IRON MOUNTAIN — The Dickinson County Healthcare System has received MPRO’s 2019 Governor’s Award of Excellence for effective reporting and measurement for outpatient and value-based purchasing in an acute-care setting.

More than 130 Michigan hospitals, physician practices, nursing homes, inpatient psychiatric facilities, ambulatory surgery centers and home health agencies were honored this year with the Governor’s Award of Excellence by the Michigan Peer Review Organization, a Farmington, Mich.-based nonprofit.

This award recognizes participants for their success in improving health care quality and patient safety in Michigan. To be eligible for the award, participants must have achieved, maintained and continually improved in specific milestones.

“To be able to recognize these outstanding accomplishments with the governor’s office highlights the importance of improving health care quality in our state,” said Dr. Leland Babitch, MPRO president and CEO.

First developed in 2003, the award is based on work from 2017-18 in:

— Improving heart health;

— Increasing adult immunizations;

— Lowering the risk of infection in hospitals;

— Effective reporting and measurement;

— Improving care in nursing homes;

— Increasing identification of behavioral health conditions;

— Improving diabetes management.

“It is a wonderful acknowledgment of the thought and care that go into the services one receives at Dickinson County Healthcare System,” said Sue Hadley, chief of nursing.

For more information about the award, go to www.mpro.org/gae2019.

Serving northern Wisconsin and the central Upper Peninsula for more than 68 years, DCHS is a 49-bed hospital with more than 60 active physicians that each year treats more than 180,000 patients. DCHS employs more than 600 people.