On Monday, Thomson Reuters released its annual study identifying the 100 top U.S. hospitals based on their overall organizational performance. The 10 areas measured, such as adherence to clinical standards and patient safety, are boosted by the use of information technology.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospital: National Benchmarks study evaluates performance in 10 areas: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length of stay, expenses, profitability, patient satisfaction, adherence to clinical standards of care, and post-discharge mortality and readmission rates for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. The study has been conducted annually since 1993.

"This year's study magnified the value that 100 Top Hospital award winners provide to their communities," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs at Thomson Reuters. "Even during the economic downturn, the 100 Top Hospitals maintained a profit from operations while raising the bar for clinical quality and patient satisfaction. The insistence of these hospitals' leaders – their boards, executive teams and medical staffs – on overall excellence makes the difference."
For the second year, Thomson Reuters also recognized the 100 Top Hospitals Everest Award winners – the hospitals among the 100 winners that delivered the greatest rate of improvement over a five-year period. This year, there are 23 Everest award winners.

To conduct the 100 Top Hospitals study, Thomson Reuters researchers evaluated 2,926 short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals. The company uses public information – Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data, and core measures and patient satisfaction data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare data set.

If all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those treated in these 100 Top Hospitals award winners:

• More than 98,000 additional patients would survive each year.
• More than 197,000 patient complications would be avoided annually.
• Expenses would decline by an aggregate $5.5 billion a year.
• The average patient stay would decrease by nearly half a day.

Top winning hospitals, by category, with the Everest award winners in bold on the next page.