This annual study identifies the nation's top organization-wide performers, using the two most recent years of data.

View the complete list of National award winners.
Download the brochure, A Guide to the 100 Top Hospitals.

Findings
The 100 Top Hospitals® have higher survival rates, keep more patients complication-free, and attract more patients—all while maintaining financial stability. We estimate that if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those in the 100 Top Hospitals winners:

• More than 120,000 additional patients would survive each year
• More than 138,000 patient complications would be avoided annually
• Expenses would decline by an aggregate $6.2 billion a year
• The average patient stay would decrease by more than half a day

The 100 Top Hospital award winners also:

• Reward their employees with better pay
• Have better patient safety, saving lives and dollars

Methods
For the past decade, Thomson Healthcare 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.

The main steps we take in selecting the 100 Top National benchmark hospitals are:

• Building the database of hospitals, including special selection and exclusion criteria:
  This study focuses on short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of patients. The data come from public sources including the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data set, and the Medicare Cost Report.
  
  
• Classifying hospitals into comparison groups according to bed size and teaching status:
  • Major Teaching Hospitals
  • Teaching Hospitals
  • Large Community Hospitals
  • Medium Community Hospitals
  • Small Community Hospitals
  
  
  
• Scoring hospitals on a set of weighted performance measures centered on clinical excellence, operating efficiency and financial health, and responsiveness to the community:
  1. Risk-adjusted mortality index
  2. Risk-adjusted complications index
  3. Risk-adjusted patient safety index
  4. Core Measures Score
  5. Severity-adjusted average length of stay
  6. Expense per adjusted discharge, case mix- and wage-adjusted
  7. Profitability (operating profit margin)
  8. Cash to total debt ratio
  
  
  
• Determining the 100 Top performers by ranking hospitals relative to their comparison group

For full details, the 2007 100 Top Hospitals study abstract is 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 understand how your hospital's 5-year performance improvement compares with your peers, order a Performance Improvement Leaders Report.

To understand what a 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success award means, download the brochure A Guide to the 100 Top Hospitals.

For more information, email the 100 Top Hospitals Coordinator at th.pubs@thomson.com or call Thomson Healthcare Publications at (800) 568-3282 (option #3).