April 26, 2013

TriHealth team members have done it again! TriHealth is one of the nation's 15 Top Health Systems, according to Truven Health Analytics, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare.

The honor is a significant achievement made possible by our dedicated team members and physicians, says John Prout, President and CEO.

"We are proud to be nationally recognized for being one of the 15 Top Health Systems in providing high-quality patient care," Prout says. "Our strong partnerships between our hospitals, physicians and the communities we serve mean efficient and safe care for our patients. Being identified as a top health system confirms the commitment of all of our doctors, nurses and team members to providing the best possible care for our patients."

Researchers from the Truven Health Analytics 100 Top Hospitals program analyzed clinical quality and efficiency of more than 300 health systems to identify the top 15.

Among the key findings in the study were:

• Better Survival Rates: 15 Top Health Systems experienced 3.4 percent fewer deaths than non-winning peer group hospitals.
• Lower 30-Day Mortality Rates: Winning systems' 30-day mortality rates were lower than peer systems.
• Fewer Complications: Patients of the winning health systems had 3 percent fewer complications than patients in other systems.
• Shorter Hospital Stays: Patients treated in the winning system hospitals had a media average length of stay of 4.49 days, over half a day shorter than their peers' median of 5.06 days.
• Better Patient Safety and Core Measure Adherence: Top health systems has 7 percent fewer adverse patient safety events than expected, given the case mix of the particular hospital, and had better adherence to core measures of care than their peers.

U.S. Health systems with two or more short-term, non-federal hospitals; cardiac and orthopedic hospitals; and critical access hospitals were assessed in the study. Researchers looked at eight metrics that gauge clinical quality and efficiency: mortality rate, 30-day readmission rate, adherence to clinical standards of care (evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and HCAHPS patient survey score (part of a national initiative sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to measure the quality of care in hospitals).

The study relied on public data from the 2010 and 2011 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data and the CMS Hospital Compare data sets.

"This is a tremendous accomplishment and a testament to the incredible efforts of our entire staff to significantly improve clinical quality and safety while delivering the safest and best health outcomes for our patients," says Georges Feghali MD, Senior Vice President of Quality and Chief Medical Officer.

"As health systems move further into health care reform, consistency of hospital and any physician outcomes in every community served is the holy grail," says Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals program at Truven Health Analytics. "Health system leaders' effectiveness will be measured not solely on the performance of the whole system compared to other systems, but also on the leader's ability to align the performance of the provider segments of the health system to achieve consistency. This new study begins to measure aspect of performance."

Researchers from the Truven Health Analytics 100 Top Hospitals program have analyzed and reported on the performance of individual hospitals since 1993. Truven Health Analytics was formerly the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters.