University Hospitals has been named one of the top 10 hospital systems in the United States based on its clinical performance by Thomson Reuters, a leading business and professional information organization based in New York.
UH and the other top 10 systems outperformed their peers by a wide margin. They provided better care, followed standards of care more closely, saved more lives, had fewer patient complications, and made fewer patient safety errors.
The list was compiled in an unprecedented study conducted by researchers from the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals®. They analyzed the quality and efficiency of 252 health systems based on five metrics: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length-of-stay, and adherence to clinical standards of care (evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).
Based on the results of this study, Thomson Reuters estimates that if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those in the top health systems that more than 47,000 additional patients would survive each year, nearly 92,000 patient complications would be avoided annually, and the average patient stay would decrease by more than half a day.
All U.S. health systems with two or more short-term, general, non-federal hospitals were assessed. The study relied on public data from the 2006 and 2007 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data and the CMS Hospital Compare data sets.
Thomson Reuters found statistically significant differences between top and bottom performers in several key areas. Compared with the poorest performers, the best-performing quintile had 25 percent lower mortality, 19 percent fewer medical complications, and 13 percent fewer patient safety incidents – even though their patients were sicker and their average hospital stays were significantly shorter.
"This wide range in performance levels raises potent questions about the mission of many health systems and their effectiveness in achieving goals," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospital programs at Thomson Reuters.
She notes that this study sets national benchmarks for health system quality and efficiency, and extends transparency regarding the performance of healthcare organizations from hospitals to health systems.
"The development of national benchmarks provides health system boards and executives with an objective assessment of the care they provided to their communities and patients, relative to others across the nation," Chenoweth said. "This provides the basis for a serious discussion about the role and responsibility of the health system in assuring quality and efficiency to each community in which a hospital carries the health system brand."
Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals program has analyzed and reported on the performance of individual hospitals sine 1993. This study marks the first time they have assessed the relative quality and efficiency of inpatient care by health systems as single entities.
The other hospital systems in the top 10 are: Advocate Health Care – Oak Brook, Ill.; Catholic Healthcare Partners – Cincinnati, Ohio; Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati – Cincinnati, Ohio; HealthEast Care System – St. Paul, Minn.; Henry Ford Health System – Detroit, Mich.; Kettering Health Network – Dayton, Ohio; OhioHealth – Columbus, Ohio; Prime Healthcare Services, Inc. – Victorville, Calif; and Trinity Health – Novi, Mich.
About University Hospitals
With 150 locations throughout Northeast Ohio, University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of hospitals, outpatient centers and primary care physicians. At the core of our Health System is University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of excellence in the nation and the world, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics and spine, radiology and radiation oncology, neurosurgery and neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, organ transplantation and human genetics. Its main campus includes the internationally celebrated Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top hospitals in the nation; MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and Ireland Cancer Center, a part of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, which holds the National Cancer Institute 's highest designation of Comprehensive Cancer Center. For more information, go to www.uhhospitals.org