Solucient report on the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® released
Winners demonstrate early adoption of new medical technologies; market share leadership

EVANSTON, IL – Sept. 29, 2003 – The nation’s top performing hospitals are much more likely to adopt important new patient care technologies and treat a larger percentage of people in their communities than other acute care U.S. hospitals, according to a Solucient study released today that names the 100 Top Hospitals® in the nation.

In fact, if all acute care hospitals performed at the same level as the nation’s top hospitals, 84,000 more Medicare patients could survive and an additional 54,000 patient stays could be complication free each year - at an estimated annual savings of $10 billion.

The study, Solucient’s 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success, 10th Edition, appears today in a special supplement to the Sept. 29 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine. It recognizes the nation’s top hospitals for setting performance benchmarks across four critical areas: quality of care, operational efficiency, financial performance, and adaptation to the environment.

“The exceptional performance of the 100 Top Hospitals award winners brings real value to their communities,” said Jean Chenoweth, executive director of Solucient’s 100 Top Hospitals program. “Spurred by the use of new medical technologies, these hospitals offer patients higher survival rates, more complication-free care, and more efficient delivery of care than other hospitals.”

Among the key findings:

• Winning or “benchmark” hospitals, particularly hospitals named to the 100 Top Hospitals list for four or more years, are more likely to be early adopters of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies than non-winning or “peer” hospitals. For instance, among hospitals that perform coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG), those who have won four or more years were almost twice as likely as peer hospitals to perform transmyocardial revascularization procedures (1999-2001). This surgery is performed by making an incision to expose the heart, then a laser is used to drill a series of holes through the heart muscle into the heart’s pumping chamber. The procedure is typically performed on patients with severe angina who are not candidates to undergo CABG or coronary balloon angioplasty surgery.
  
• In addition, benchmark hospitals are more likely than their peers to administer newer drugs to ischemic stroke patients or those undergoing coronary balloon angioplasty surgery. Hospitals who have won for four or more years administered one class of newer drugs – GPIIb/IIIa inhibitors – to 12.5 percent more coronary balloon angioplasty patients than did peer hospitals.
  
• Benchmark hospitals are also more likely to have a larger share of the market in their communities than their peers, particularly in specialties such as cardiology, neurology, pulmonary, urology, and gastroenterology. In fact, hospitals that have won a 100 Top Hospitals award four or more times have 42 to 61 percent more market share in these specialties than those that have never won an award.
  
• 84,374 more Medicare patients could survive each year if overall performance at peer hospitals was the same as at the 100 Top Hospitals in the nation. An additional 53,500 patients could avoid complications. Between 1997 and 2001, the unadjusted survival rate at benchmark hospitals increased nearly one percent compared to just over one-half a percentage point in peer hospitals.

Among the study’s other findings:

• Benchmark hospitals had expenses per discharge that were nearly 19 percent lower than their peers ($3,795 benchmark versus $4,677 peer).
  
• The average operating profit margin for winning hospitals was 7 percent, compared with 2 percent for non-winners.
  
• Patients at winning hospitals return to everyday life faster than those at non-winning hospitals. These patients were released a third of a day more quickly than at peer hospitals.
  
• Winning hospitals employ 20 percent fewer staff (per 100 patient discharges), but treat more – and sicker – patients than non-winning hospitals. Patient case mix at benchmark hospitals was 16 percent higher than peer hospitals. Benchmark hospitals also had 20 percent more admissions per bed.

The tenth edition of the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study analyzed acute care hospitals nationwide using detailed empirical performance data from 2001, including publicly available Medicare MEDPAR data and Medicare cost reports. The measures were calculated for five classes of hospitals with the following number of winners in each:

• Major Teaching - 16 winners*
• Teaching - 25 winners
• Large Community, 250+ Beds - 21 winners*
• Medium Community, 100 to 249 Beds - 20 winners
• Small Community, 25 to 99 Beds - 20 winners
  *Denotes a tie

The study scored facilities according to key measures: risk-adjusted mortality and risk adjusted complications, average length of stay, expenses, profitability, percent of outpatient revenue, total asset turnover, and coding specificity.

Media Notes:

- More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com. Copies of the 100 Top Hospitals report can be purchased by calling Solucient at 1-800-568-3282 or logging on to www.100tophospitals.com.

- To schedule an interview with Jean Chenoweth, executive director of Solucient’s 100 Top Hospitals program, contact Tarsis Lopez at (847) 440-9619; mediarequests@solucient.com.

Solucient’s 100 Top Hospitals®

Major Teaching Hospitals (400 or more acute-care beds)
St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Phoenix, AZ
Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford, CT
Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA
Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, Evanston, IL
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, IL
Mayo Clinic–Saint Marys Hospital, Rochester, MN
Mayo Clinic–Rochester Methodist Hospital, Rochester, MN
Pitt County Memorial Hospital, Greenville, NC
Summa Health System, Akron, OH
The Ohio State University Hospitals, Columbus, OH
The Western Pennsylvania Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
Parkland Health and Hospital Systems, Dallas, TX
University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, VA
Medical College of Virginia Hospital, Richmond, VA
University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics, Madison, WI

Teaching Hospitals (200 or more acute-care beds)
Sutter General Hospital, Sacramento, CA
Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital, Denver, CO
Rose Medical Center, Denver, CO
Halifax Medical Center, Daytona Beach, FL
Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa, Mason City, IA
Regional Medical Center, Madisonville, KY
Beverly Hospital, Beverly, MA
William Beaumont Hospital – Troy, Troy, MI
St. Luke's Hospital, Chesterfield, MO
Freeman West Hospital, Joplin, MO
Deaconess Billings Clinic, Billings, MT
NorthEast Medical Center, Concord, NC
Akron General Medical Center, Akron, OH
Mercy Medical Center, Canton, OH
Hillcrest Hospital, Cleveland, OH
Mount Carmel West, Columbus, OH
Riverside Methodist Hospital, Columbus, OH
Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, Portland, OR
St. Joseph Medical Center, Reading, PA
Latrobe Area Hospital, Latrobe, PA
Brackenridge Hospital, Austin, TX
St. Mark's Hospital, Salt Lake City, UT
Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk, VA
Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, WA
Southwest Washington Medical Center, Vancouver, WA

Large Community Hospitals (250 or more acute-care beds)
Carondelet St Joseph's Hospital, Tucson, AZ
Carondelet St. Mary's Hospital, Tucson, AZ
Swedish Medical Center, Englewood, CO
Exempla Lutheran Medical Center, Wheat Ridge, CO
Baptist Hospital of Miami, Miami, FL
Lee Memorial Health System, Fort Meyers, FL
Martin Memorial Medical Center, Stuart, FL
South Miami Hospital, South Miami, FL
North Florida Regional Medical Center, Gainesville, FL
Blake Medical Center, Bradenton, FL
Cape Coral Hospital, Cape Coral, FL
Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point, Hudson, FL
Delray Medical Center, Delray Beach, FL
Shawnee Mission Medical Center, Shawnee Mission, KS
Washington County Hospital Association, Hagerstown, MD
Parma Community General Hospital, Parma, OH
Mercy Medical Center, Springfield, OH
LakeEast Hospital, Painesville, OH
EMH Regional Medical Center, Elyria, OH
St. Mary Medical Center, Langhorne, PA
Houston Northwest Medical Center, Houston, TX

Medium Community Hospitals (100-249 acute-care beds)
Northwest Medical Center, Tucson, AZ
Orange Park Medical Center, Orange Park, FL
Palms West Hospital, Loxahatchee, FL
Wellington Regional Medical Center, West Palm Beach, FL
Fairview Park Hospital, Dublin, GA
Scott Memorial Hospital, Scottsburg, IN
Meadowview Regional Medical Center, Maysville, KY
Northwest Hospital Center, Randallstown, MD
Milford--Whitinsville Regional Hospital, Milford, MA
St. John's Mercy Hospital, Washington, MO
Mercy Hospital Anderson, Cincinnati, OH
Brown County General Hospital, Georgetown, OH
Licking Memorial Hospital, Newark, OH
Mercy Hospital Clermont, Batavia, OH
UPMC Northwest, Oil City, PA
Marshall Medical Center, Lewisburg, TN
St Clare Hospital, Lakewood, WA
St. Francis Hospital, Federal Way, WA
Bellin Memorial Hospital, Green Bay, WI
Appleton Medical Center, Appleton, WI

Small Community Hospitals (25-99 acute-care beds)
Fannin Regional Hospital, Blue Ridge, GA
Edward A. Utlaut Memorial Hospital, Greenville, IL
Whitesburg ARH, Whitesburg, KY
Georgetown Community Hospital, Georgetown, KY
Kentucky River Medical Center, Jackson, KY
Otsego Memorial Hospital, Gaylord, MI
Swift County-Benson Hospital, Benson, MN
Speare Memorial Hospital, Plymouth, NH
Nor-Lea General Hospital, Lovington, NM
Dunlap Memorial Hospital, Orrville, OH
Memorial Hospital of Union County, Marysville, OH
Sequoyah Memorial Hospital, Sallisaw, OK
UPMC Bedford Memorial, Everett, PA
Greene County Memorial Hospital, Waynesburg, PA
Rhea Medical Center, Dayton, TN
Fentress County General Hospital, Jamestown, TN
Trinity Hospital, Erin, TN
Crockett Hospital, Lawrenceburg, TN
Valley View Medical Center, Cedar City, UT
Ashley Valley Medical Center, Vernal, UT