Premier Healthcare Alliance Recognizes Nation's Top Hospitals For Commitment To High-quality Patient Care, Operational Efficiency

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 18 Jun 2009 - 8:00 PDT

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The Premier healthcare alliance has recognized the nation's top hospitals for their commitment to outstanding patient care and operational efficiency with the 2009 Premier Award for Quality (AFQ). Premier announced the 23 winners of the award, out of more than 3,796 eligible hospitals nationwide, at Premier's annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition in Anaheim, Calif.

The AFQ recognizes leading healthcare organizations that efficiently provide outstanding patient care and consistently set the standard in clinical excellence nationwide. Distinguished by its consideration of performance-based criteria, including clinical quality outcomes, resource utilization, and clinical process indicators, the AFQ measures top performers at the overall hospital level.

"The Award for Quality honors the efforts of our nation's leading hospitals to provide superior quality and operational efficiency," said Susan DeVore, Premier incoming president and CEO. "We're thrilled to celebrate the efforts of these facilities as they improve the health of the communities they serve."

All acute care inpatient facilities in the United States that submitted data to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the CMS Hospital Compare project were considered for the AFQ. Using MedPar 2007 data, Quality and Efficiency Indexes were calculated for 62 disease groups and at the overall hospital level. Quality was measured by the incidence of three adverse outcomes: mortality, morbidity and complications, which are combined into a single Quality Index using the preference weightings from the Corporate Hospital Rating Project. The efficiency index was generated using length of stay to proxy for resource utilization.

Acute care facilities attaining the top 1 percent designation are identified as having scores in the top two quintiles for process of care and in 10 out of 62 disease groups and at the overall hospital level for quality and efficiency. Additionally, hospitals had measures for quality and efficiency that were equal to or exceeded expected outcomes.

2009 Award for Quality winners are:

SSM DePaul Health Center - Bridgeton, Mo.
St. Elizabeth Health Center - Youngstown, Ohio
Hoag Memorial Hospital - Newport Beach, Calif.
Memorial Regional Hospital - Hollywood, Fla.
Winchester Hospital - Winchester, Mass.
Hackensack University Medical Center - Hackensack, N.J.
Good Samaritan Hospital - Cincinnati
Saint Vincent Health Center - Erie, Pa.
Albert Einstein Medical Center - Philadelphia
Allegiance Health - Jackson, Mich.
Mercy General Hospital - Sacramento, Calif.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - Boston
Sound Shore Medical Center of Westchester - New Rochelle, N.Y.
Joint Township District Memorial Hospital - Saint Marys, Ohio
St. Vincent Charity Hospital - Cleveland
Lakewood Hospital - Lakewood, Ohio
The Western Pennsylvania Hospital - Pittsburgh
Memorial Hospital - Colorado Springs, Colo.
Penrose/St. Francis Healthcare - Colorado Springs, Colo.
Rush University Medical Center - Chicago
Paoli Memorial Hospital - Paoli, Pa.
Medical University of South Carolina - Charleston, S.C.
Maury Regional Hospital - Columbia, Tenn.

Source
Premier Inc.