Evanston, IL, February 6, 2001 — In a study released today, the Solucient Leadership Institute found that the U.S. health care industry could save an estimated $1.5 billion and more than 30,000 deaths could potentially be avoided annually if all Intensive Care Units operated at the same levels as the top performing ICUs in both teaching and community hospitals.

The study, "100 Top Hospitals: Intensive Care Unit Benchmarks for Success," is the first comparative analysis of ICU performance across all of the nation's hospitals.

"Because of the wide range of life threatening illnesses treated in intensive care, it has been a difficult area for managed care organizations and performance improvement staff to measure. Hence, cost-cutting efforts generally have been avoided," said Jean Chenoweth, executive director of the Solucient Leadership Institute. "However, this study shows that the payoff for improving quality of care and reducing costs is enormous for everyone - the patients, the hospitals and the payers."

"ICUs account for 10 percent of hospital patient beds but 25 percent of a hospital's cost structure," explained Mike Breslow, M.D., executive vice president of Baltimore-based VISICU, which sponsored the study. "The ICU is where patients are dying and where health care is spending huge amounts of money, so it is critical to assess what hospitals can do differently."

U.S. hospitals treat about 5 million ICU patients a year, a number expected to double during the next 15 years as the population ages, according to Breslow, a specialist trained in intensive care at Johns-Hopkins before co-founding VISICU.

"The research shows that regardless of whether we are comparing teaching hospitals, teaching hospitals with residencies in intensive care, or community hospitals, some institutions in all three categories exhibit superior intensive care management, resulting in much better outcomes and significantly lower costs," Chenoweth said. "We hope the development of these benchmarks and naming the top performing ICU hospitals will encourage others to study those winning ICU practices."

The study analyzed three different sets of patient populations, including those: 

• With at least one of 10 medical diagnoses that commonly result in an ICU admission, such as heart attack or stroke.
• Surgical procedures that are commonly admitted to an ICU post operatively, such as lung removal or open heart.
• ICU admissions in which the patients were on a life-supporting mechanical ventilator for four or more days.

Only hospitals with 30 or more cases in each patient population, a universe of 1,200 hospitals, were included in the study. For each group, all performance measurements were adjusted to include factors that impact mortality independent of the ICU. Data sources for the study included publicly available 1998 and 1999 MedPAR data, which covers nearly 6,000 hospitals.

VISICU, Inc., Baltimore MD., is the "ICU Company" and through its innovative Continuous Expert Care Network (CXCN), is forging a new standard for critical care delivery by combining advanced technologies and comprehensive clinical services. VISICU provides ICU patients with around-the-clock care from an off-site electronic ICU "eICU" staffed by trained intensive care specialists "intensivists" and critical care nurses. CXCN combines this staff with telemedicine, clinical information systems, decision support tools and outcomes tracking software into a powerful program enabling hospitals to save lives, improve outcomes and reduce costs

About Solucient: The result of a recent merger of HCIA-Sachs with HBSI, Solucient, headquartered in Evanston, Ill., powers health care decision-making. As the largest source of health care intelligence and benchmark information, Solucient provides health care organizations with access to comprehensive, results-oriented information to grow their business, contain costs and deliver quality care. Solucient delivers strategic clinical, operational, financial, planning and marketing information resulting in improved health care business and clinical outcomes. Solucient's robust information helps benchmark performance across the continuum of care.

The Solucient Leadership Institute is the research and education division of Solucient. The Institute is dedicated to the improvement of the health care industry through the promulgation of quality information. The Institute produces 100 Top Hospitals and Clinical Research Program studies. Study excerpts are available via the Internet at www.100TopHospitals.com. For media copies, please follow the media link on the Web site's home page or call 847-475-7526 ext. 2112.

Note: Study excerpts are available via the Internet at www.100TopHospitals.com. For media copies, please follow the media link on the Web site's home page or call 212-402-5455 ext. 106.

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