The other top-performing hospitals identified by UHC were Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinic in Madison, Wis., the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo. Results of the study were shared at UHC's 6th annual Quality and Safety Forum in Scottsdale, Ariz., on September 22. UHC, based in Oak Brook, Ill., is an alliance of 92 academic medical centers that offers its members specific programs and services to improve clinical and operational performance.

Unlike other reviews of hospitals that take into account reputation, the UHC study is completely objective; it's based entirely on patient-level outcomes data, measuring patient safety, mortality, efficiency and equity of care. The UHC study estimated that if a middle or average performing hospital made the improvements necessary to become a top performing hospital, about 150 lives would be save each year.

The study, which involved some of the nation's finest academic medical centers, was designed to identify the organizational and cultural factors that contribute to superior patient care. The first step involved a rigorous review of safety and quality measures X including JCAHO core measures X of the 79 participating member institutions. Based on that initial review, UHC chose to visit three institutions whose data indicated they were ranked in the top percentile of academic health centers in terms of safety, quality and outcomes, as well as three institutions with average or middle rankings in these areas. Neither the institutions nor the UHC survey teams were aware of the rankings. The Rush site visit took place in July.

During the site visits, several key themes emerged among the top performers, according to the UHC. These them
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Contact: John Pontarelli
jpontare@rush.edu
312-942-5949
Rush University Medical Center
31-Oct-2005