St. Luke’s Hospice Duluth® has been named a 2016 Hospice Honors recipient by Deyta Analytics, a division of HEALTHCAREfirst, the leading provider of Web-based home health and hospice software, outsourced billing and coding services, and advanced analytics. Hospice Honors is a prestigious program that recognizes hospices providing the highest level of quality as measured from the caregiver’s point of view.

“Hospice Honors is a landmark compilation of hospices that provide the best patient and caregiver experiences,” said Bobby Robertson, President and CEO of HEALTHCAREfirst. “I am extremely proud of St. Luke’s Hospice Duluth® for achieving this highest of honors and I congratulate them on their success.”

Lynn Nelson, St. Luke’s Director of Home Care and Hospice, credits the compassionate and dedication the hospice staff has to its patients and families. She said, "I am so proud of our hospice team for winning this award. We are honored to be recognized for our outstanding care of patients and their loved ones during end of life."

Award criteria were based on Hospice CAHPS survey results for an evaluation period of April through September 2015. In order to receive the award, hospices must have partnered with Deyta Analytics, a division of HEALTHCAREfirst, as their survey partner and must have had at least one completed survey returned in each quarter of the evaluation period. Award recipients were identified by evaluating hospices’ performance on a set of 24 quality indicator measures. Individual hospice performance scores were aggregated from all surveys with a final survey status of complete for the evaluation period and were compared on a question-by-question basis to a national performance score calculated from all partnering hospices contained in Deyta Analytics’ Hospice CAHPS database.