Union City, Tenn., July 19, 2005 - Baptist Memorial Hospital-Union City recently was named a recipient of a Gallup Award for Healthcare Excellence 2005 for achieving and maintaining patient satisfaction in its inpatient nursing units.

The award, presented by the Gallup Healthcare Group, honors leaders in the health care industry that develop innovative solutions to improve the quality of their organizations. Baptist Union City is one of nine winners from a pool of 29 applicants chosen based on the difficulty of the hospital’s challenge, innovation and creativity used in addressing the challenge and demonstration of improvement through measurable results.

“At Baptist Union City, we are committed to providing our patients with high-quality, compassionate care,” said James Caldwell, chief nursing officer at Baptist Union City. “We are proud of our staff and the work they do, and an award like this only reinforces our mission here.”

As an award recipient, Caldwell will present the hospital’s case study to other award recipients and health care peers at the Gallup Healthcare Group’s annual Healthcare Forum Oct. 5-7 in Washington, D.C. The case study also will be featured in Gallup’s annual Journal for Healthcare Excellence.

Gallup Healthcare Group works with clients in all segments of the health care industry —providers, payers, manufacturers and distributors — and with for-profit, non-profit, government and academic organizations. Company consultants work with health care organizations to implement solutions to achieve increased and sustainable business outcomes through increasing patient and physician loyalty, enhancing employee engagement and retention and achieving business results.

Baptist Union City became part of Baptist Memorial Health Care in 1982. In 1995, construction was completed on a new three-story, 85,000-square-foot patient tower. This construction added patient rooms and tripled the size of the emergency department. The 173-bed facility is located in the northwest corner of Tennessee, just south of the Kentucky border. Services include behavioral health, home care and hospice, physical therapy, cancer treatment and a 24-hour emergency room.

# # #