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Thomson Reuters Announces Highest Performing Hospital Systems That Improve Quality, Have Lower 30-Day Mortality Rate

Chosen from more than 300 healthcare systems across the country, HCA Central and West Texas Division was named among the nation’s 15 top U.S. health systems by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare.

The award recognizes hospital systems that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, patient satisfaction and operational efficiency, based on balanced system-wide clinical performance.

HCA Central and West Texas Division, including Central Texas-based St. David’s HealthCare and El Paso-based Las Palmas Del Sol Healthcare, was one of only two health systems in Texas to receive this ranking.

The Thomson Reuters “15 Top Health Systems” study singled out 15 hospital systems that achieved superior clinical outcomes based on a composite score of eight measures of quality, patient perception of care and efficiency.

“We are pleased that our commitment to high-quality care is receiving national attention from such an esteemed organization as Thomson Reuters,” David Huffstutler, president of HCA Central and West Texas Division, said.

The following were among the key findings in the study:

• Lower 30-Day Mortality Rates: 15 Top Health Systems held post-discharge 30-day mortality rates steady, while peer health systems demonstrated a significant increase in post-discharge mortality.
• Better Survival Rates: Winning hospitals had 17 percent fewer deaths than expected considering patient severity, while non-winning hospitals had 4 percent more deaths than expected.
• Fewer Complications: Patients of the winning health systems had 19 percent fewer complications.
• Shorter Hospital Stays: Patients treated in the winning system hospitals have a median average length of stay of 4.7 days, nearly half a day shorter than their peers’ median of 5.1 days.
• Better Patient Safety and Core Measure Adherence: Top health systems had 23 percent fewer adverse patient safety events than expected and had better adherence to core measures of care than their peers.

U.S. health systems with two or more short-term, general, non-federal hospitals; cardiac and orthopedic hospitals; and critical access hospitals were assessed in the study. Researchers looked at eight metrics that gauge clinical quality and efficiency: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length of stay, 30-day mortality rate, 30-day readmission rate, adherence to clinical standards of care (evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), and HCAHPS patient survey score (part of a national initiative sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to measure the quality of care in hospitals).

The study relied on public data from the 2010 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review data and the CMS Hospital Compare data sets.

Researchers from the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals program have analyzed and reported on the performance of individual hospitals since 1993.

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