University of Virginia Health System

U.VA. AMONG 100 TOP HOSPITALS

Now in its sixth year, the study, 100 Top Hospitals: Benchmarks for Success, acknowledges hospitals in five categories that demonstrate superior performance by their clinical practices, operations and financial management.

The study is conducted by HCIA Inc. and William M. Mercer Inc. and is reported each year in Modern Healthcare, a weekly business news magazine. HCIA, a leading health care information content company, maintains the industry's largest health care data warehouse. Mercer is the world's largest human resources consulting firm.

Being named as one of the top 100 hospitals is not only an honor but a reflection of the dedication and commitment of our employees, says Robert. W. Cantrell, M.D., vice president and provost of health sciences. The array of performance measures that HCIA and Mercer used demonstrate that, across the institution, there is a collaborative effort to deliver quality in our clinical practices, operations and financial management. To be named among the top 100, you have to have everyone working toward the same goal, and I am proud that we have achieved that.

The study looked at 3,258 hospitals, including small (25-99 beds), medium (100-249 beds), large community (250-plus beds), teaching (250-plus beds), and major teaching (400-plus beds). UVa and the other 14 hospitals with 400 or more acute-care beds were recognized from among 99 major teaching hospitals that were surveyed. UVa was the only major hospital from the South, even though the region led the nation for the fourth consecutive year with 43 percent of all benchmark hospitals.

The performance measures for the study stressed quality of care, efficiency of operations and sustainability of overall performance. To define the current state of health care and to determine the trends affecting future change, HCIA and Mercer looked across multiple years of performance - 1993-1997 - rather than simply using a single-year snapshot. The performance measures included risk-adjusted mortality index, risk-adjusted complications index, severity-adjusted average length of stay, profitability, proportion of outpatient revenue, index of total facility occupancy, productivity, and expense per adjusted discharge, both case-mix and wage-adjusted.

The study found that if all U.S. acute-care hospitals operated like the 100 top hospitals, expenses would decline by an aggregate $26.3 billion a year. Among the study's other findings about the benchmark hospitals: Quality, as measured by mortality and complications, was at least 16 percent better than in the rest of the country; had an average length of stay that was 7 percent shorter than other hospitals for complex cases; and did more with less -- on average, they employed 18 percent fewer staff per unit, had 22 percent higher occupancy, and were consistently more profitable.

Joining UVa Medical Center in the top 15 major teaching hospitals were: Hospital of St. Raphael, New Haven, Conn.; St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford, Conn.; Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Conn.; Evanston Hospital Corporation, Evanston, Ill.; Christ Hospital and Medical Center, Oak Lawn, Ill.; Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, Ill.; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Ill.; Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, Mass.; Butterworth Hospital, Grand Rapids, Mich.; William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Mich.; Albany Medical Center Hospital, Albany, N.Y.; Staten Island University Hospital, Staten Island, N.Y.; Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio; and Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, Pa.

Brigham & Women's Hospital is the only hospital to be in the top 100 all six years of the study. The only other Virginia hospitals in the top 100 are Augusta Health Care Inc. of Fishersville in the medium category and INOVA Fairfax Hospital of Falls Church in the 250-plus-bed teaching category.

Over the past six years, the empirical results of the 100 top hospitals study have proved that hospitals can excel as managed care penetration deepens, financial pressure increases, and the demand for quality intensifies, says Jean Chenoweth, HCIA senior vice president. These hospitals have superior management teams that thrive on adversity and make their organizations function on all cylinders.

December 9, 1998