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.

In developing the multi-year trending tool used for this study, we devised a methodology that we feel removes the bias that could diminish our ability to highlight true data trends. Ensuring consistent methodologies over time gives us a quantitatively rigorous and correct methodology for tracking multi-year changes.

The Study Universe

The Performance Improvement Leaders study uses three primary sources of data:

• the publicly available Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data set,
• the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Standard Analytical File Outpatient data set, and
• the Medicare Cost Report.

In addition, residency program information, used in classifying teaching hospitals, is from the American Medical Association (ACGME-accredited programs) and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA). The data in this study are from federal fiscal years 2000 through 2004.

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 nine 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 nine measures are: