Information technology helps top-performing hospitals around the country adhere to the measures that define excellence on all fronts, say CIOs who work for some of the best. Thomson Reuters released on March 29 its annual study identifying the 100 top U.S. hospitals based on their overall organizational performance.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospital: National Benchmarks study evaluates performance in these 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.


“While it may be onerous to prove a direct cause and effect relationship between information technology investment and performance on the Top 100 metrics, it is easy to see the correlation,” said Chris Podges, CIO at Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Mich., part of a seven-hospital health system. “The way Munson Healthcare has designed and optimized our clinical technology helps us "hard-wire" quality and safety into our clinical practice.”


"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."


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, and Munson Medical Center is among them.


The Thomson Reuters study recognized Ochsner Medical Center as one of the 100 and among the top 15 major teaching hospitals in the nation. Ochsner has also received the Most Wired Award each year since 2003.


Information technology enables Ochsner to achieve the performance measures, said Chris Belmont, system vice president and CIO at Ochsner. “The aggregation of data across our health system is accomplished through standard and tightly integrated information systems,” Belmont said.  “Coordination of care is accomplished through Ochsner Clinical Workstation, which is the electronic medical record system utilized by Ochsner physicians. It contains patient-centered medical record information that can be seamlessly accessed online.”

All of this is directed at providing top care, Belmont said.

"We want our care to be our legacy,” said Patrick Quinlan, MD, Ochsner CEO.

Thomson Reuters also measure performance on the financial front, and IT plays a critical role, Belmont said.

“Strong corporate systems and network infrastructure provide automation for business operations in the procurement, revenue cycle, payroll, human resources and finance areas,” he said.

Lake Region Healthcare in Fergus Falls, Minn., one of the top 100 hospitals, recently selected an Allscripts electronic health record and practice management system for 50 affiliated physicians at Fergus Falls Medical Group. The IT effort is part of its quest for quality care, say hospital officials.
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Lake Region Healthcare and Fergus Falls Medical Group have worked together for years to build a medical community where the patient comes first, and the electronic health record and practice management system is the fruit of that shared vision," said John Peterson, CEO of Fergus Falls Medical Group.


"The Thomson Reuters award is very difficult to achieve, because the study criteria change and the standards of care are raised every year,” said Central DuPage Hospital's CEO, Luke McGuinness. “Winners must perform well across many measures, not just one. And we need to outperform many very good hospitals to achieve this recognition." 


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 patients received the same level of care as Medicare patients treated in the winning hospitals, the study contends:

• 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.