Thomson Reuters released its annual study Monday identifying the 100 top U.S. hospitals based on their overall organizational performance in 10 key areas, which hinge on IT use.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals study evaluates performance in 10 areas: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average patient stay, expenses, profitability, patient satisfaction, adherence to clinical standards of care, post-discharge mortality and readmission rates for acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), heart failure, and pneumonia.

"This year's 100 Top Hospitals award winners have delivered exemplary results, despite volatility from healthcare reform," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president at Thomson Reuters. "The leadership teams at these organizations have dealt with enormous ambiguity, yet remained focused on mission and excellence across the hospital which drove national benchmarks to new highs."

Thomson Reuters is also recognizing, for the third year, the 100 Top Hospitals Everest Award winners – those hospitals among the 100 winners that delivered the greatest rate of improvement over five years. This year, there are six Everest Award winners.

To conduct the 100 Top Hospitals study, Thomson Reuters researchers evaluated 2,914 short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals. They used 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 website. Hospitals do not apply for this award and winners do not pay to market this honor.

[See also: Top hospitals ‘hard wire’ quality, safety.]

If all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those treated in the award-winning facilities, researchers estimates that:

• Nearly 116,000 additional patients would survive each year.
• More than 197,000 patient complications would be avoided annually.
• Expense per adjusted discharge would drop by $462.
• The average patient stay would decrease by half a day.

Click on the next page to view the winning hospitals, by category, with asterisks indicating the Everest Award winners.