"This award is recognition of the hospital's commitment to improving healthcare in its area. The community should be proud of this achievement and the professionalism demonstrated by the hospital staff. While winning a national award should not be any hospital's goal, this award clearly exemplifies service excellence in a concrete, measurable manner," said Dr. Michael Everett, Avatar CEO.

Hospitals that work with Avatar embrace a continuous improvement philosophy. While it is helpful to hospitals to have comparative results at a national level, Avatar's philosophy is that the most important comparison is how each hospital performs in relationship to the expectations of the patients it serves.

Expectations measurement gives a broad patient perspective on quality, reliability and how well the patient's personal needs are met. Avatar feels a hospital's key goal should be to manage the healthcare experience so that it exceeds patient expectations. The difference between expectations and Avatar's overall hospital score is known as the e-gap.

In 2002, Mayo Regional achieved an overall Avatar score of 89.39, and had an expectations score of 87.58, yielding a positive e-gap of 1.81.

So far in fiscal year 2003 (October 2002-March 2003), Mayo's overall score has risen to 89.98, but the expectations score has also risen, to 89.45. Mayo is still exceeding patient expectations, and has a positive e-gap of 0.53.

"Consistently exceeding your patient's expectations is not easy; many hospitals do not meet this most basic yet critical benchmark," said Everett.