The following is a release from EvergreenHealth, which serves Kirkland, Bothell and Kenmore:
EvergreenHealth, which serves Kirkland, Bothell and Kenmore, has been named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals by Truven Health AnalyticsTM in the “Large Community Hospitals” category for outstanding achievements in patient care, operational efficiency and financial strength. The Kirkland-based health system earned recognition for its ability to improve outcomes and reduce overall expense per patient and is the only hospital in Washington state to receive the honor this year.
Truven Health Analytics, a leading provider of data-driven analytics and solutions to improve the cost and quality of health care, releases an annual study identifying the 100 top U.S. hospitals based on their overall organizational performance. This was the first time in the study’s 23-year history that a notable trend toward reduced expense per patient was observed among the majority of top-performing hospitals.
EvergreenHealth was recognized for its low 30-day mortality and readmission rates and for fewer complications and higher survival rates among patients, while maintaining lower inpatient costs per beneficiary than comparable organizations. In fact, EvergeenHealth’s adjusted inpatient expense per patient is 18.4 percent lower than the median within that category and 21.2 percent lower than the median of all institutions included in the list.
“As a health care system, we hold ourselves to the highest standards for providing quality care at the greatest value. To us, that means finding the intersection of exceptional quality, safety, service and price and keeping the patient at the center of all of our decision-making,” said EvergreenHealth CEO Bob Malte. “This recognition is a proof-point of our care system’s dedication to those standards and our focus on offering patients the highest quality of value-based health care available.”
The Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals study is the most comprehensive and academically driven study of its kind, which is compiled with data from nearly 3,000 hospitals across the country. It is the only study exclusively endorsed by Modern Healthcare, one of the most influential health care industry publications in the country.
“The 2016 100 Top Hospitals award winners represent the highest national standards in hospital care and management. They set the benchmarks for peers around the country to follow,” said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president at Truven Health Analytics. “Hospitals in three out of the five report groups actually reduced overall expense year over year, while improving patient outcomes – exactly the results that the entire industry hopes to attain.”
EvergreenHealth and other 100 Top Hospitals award winners excelled in the following areas when compared with their peers:
· Better Survival Rates: As a group, 100 Top Hospitals had 23 percent fewer deaths than expected considering patient severity.
· Fewer Patient Complications: Patients at winning hospitals had 21 percent fewer complications than expected considering patient severity.
· Lower 30-Day Mortality and Readmission Rates: Mean 30 day mortality and readmission rates were lower at winning hospitals than non-winning hospitals across all comparison groups.
· Shorter Length of Stay: Winning hospitals had a median severity-adjusted length of stay that was a half-day shorter than peers.
· Higher Profit Overall Margins: Winning hospitals had a median operating profit margin that was nearly nine percentage points higher than non-winning hospitals.
Based on the results of this year’s study, if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those treated at EvergreenHealth and other award-winning facilities:
Nearly 126,500 additional lives could be saved
Nearly 109,000 additional patients could be complication-free
$1.8 billion in inpatient costs could be saved
The typical patient could be released from the hospital half a day sooner
Episode-of-illness expense would be two percent lower than the peer median
If the same standards were applied to all inpatient care – the impact would be even greater.
To conduct the 100 Top Hospitals study, Truven Health researchers evaluated 3,000 short-term, acute-care, non-federal hospitals. They used public information — Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data and core measures and patient satisfaction data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare website. Hospitals do not apply, and winners do not pay to market this honor.
The study evaluates clinical and operational performance in 11 areas, addressing: inpatient mortality; 30-day mortality rate; complications; core measures; 30-day risk-adjusted readmission rate; severity-adjusted average length of stay; mean emergency room throughput; inpatient expense per discharge; Medicare spend per beneficiary; adjusted operating profit margin; and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) score (patient rating of overall hospital performance). The study has been conducted annually since 1993.
For more information on the Truven 100 Top Hospitals study, visit www.100tophospitals.com and to learn more about EvergreenHealth, visit www.evergreenhealth.com or call 425-899-3000.
