March 19, 2007

VUMC Ranked Among Elite Health Facilities

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been recognized for the eighth consecutive year as one of the top 100 hospitals in the country, in a study by Solucient Institute.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has been recognized for the eighth consecutive year as one of the top 100 hospitals in the country, in a study by Solucient Institute.

The list identifies hospitals that have achieved certain national benchmark level scores for overall organizational performance in comparison with peer hospitals across the nation. Hospitals are assigned to one of five comparison groups according to size and teaching status.

Vanderbilt is one of only six health facilities in Tennessee to make the list, “Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success.” The full list appears in the current issue of Modern Healthcare.

Solucient compiles its Top 100 list after poring over objective statistical analysis of publicly available data from more than 6,000 acute-care general hospitals and determining new national performance benchmarks.

Hospitals were scored according to nine key organization-wide measures: risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, patient safety, core measures average, growth in patient volume, severity-adjusted average length of stay, expense per adjusted discharge, profit from operations and cash-to-debt ratio.

According to Solucient, hospitals on the list “have higher survival rates, keep more patients complication-free and attract more patients — all while maintaining higher profits.”

They estimate that if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those in the Top 100 Hospitals, then:

• More than 100,000 additional patients would survive each year.

• More than 114,000 patient complications would be avoided annually.

• Expenses would decline by an aggregate $10.9 billion a year.

• The average patient stay would decrease by more than half a day.

• With 25 percent higher admissions per bed, benchmark hospitals treated more patients and also treated patients who were sicker and required more complex treatment.

• Top 100 hospitals spent an average of 12 percent less, per discharge, than peer hospitals.

• Median total profit margin was nearly three times the median of peer hospitals.

• Salaries and benefits were $3,200 more a year per full-time staff member.