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Methodology
For the
past decade, Solucient has consistently identified benchmark practices
by using solely objective statistical analyses of public data sources,
and by constantly improving and refining the study performance measures,
thresholds for inclusion, and methodologies.
Over
the years, researchers and statisticians both inside and outside of
the Solucient organization have scrutinized the 100 Top Hospitals
methodologies. In an article published in the Journal of Healthcare
Management, University of Michigan researchers John R. Griffith, FACHE,
and Jeffrey A. Alexander, Ph.D., concluded that the 100 Top Hospitals
measures indicate relative performance on important objectives, and
can be used by hospital boards to identify and prioritize areas for
improvement. The authors received the American College of Healthcare
Executives’ 2003
Edgar C. Hayhow Award for their work on the article.
The
Study Universe
The data
used in the 100 Top Hospitals study come from Solucient’s hospital
database and the publicly available MEDPAR (Medicare Provider Analysis
and Review) data set. Data from the hospital database are used in
calculating all the financial measures for this study. This database
contains more than 800 data elements for over 6,000 U.S. acute care
and specialty hospitals. Data used in calculating mortality, complications,
length of stay and the coding specificity rate are from the MEDPAR
data set, which contains information on the more than 12 million Medicare
discharges from the nation’s acute care hospitals annually.
The
Comparison Groups
Bed size,
teaching status, and residency program involvement have a profound
effect on the types of patients a hospital treats and the scope of
services it provides. We assign each hospital to one of five peer
groups according to its size and teaching status:
- Major
Teaching Hospitals
- Teaching
Hospitals
- Large
Community Hospitals
- Medium
Community Hospitals
- Small
Community Hospitals
The Performance Measures
Our methodology
brings together a group of eight measures of clinical quality practice,
operations, and financial management that we believe constitutes the
most reliable, scientific way possible to produce benchmarks for superior
hospital performance. We also believe that the use of publicly available
data supports this goal.
The eight
measures are:
-
Risk-adjusted mortality index
- Risk-adjusted
complications index
- Severity-adjusted
average length of stay
- Expense
per adjusted discharge, case mix- and wage-adjusted
- Profitability
(operating profit margin)
- Proportion
of outpatient revenue
- Productivity
(total asset turnover ratio)
- Coding
specificity rate
For
full details, the 2002 100 Top Hospitals study abstract is now available!
Click here for more information or to order.
Make
the 100 Top Hospitals study work for you:
Want
to see how your hospital scored on the 100 Top Hospitals measures?
Order a Results Report
to see how you compare.
To see
how your hospital’s 5-year progress compares, order a Trend
Report.
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