Using our unique trending methodologies, this study identifies hospital management teams that have led their organizations to achieve the fastest rate of consistent annual organizational improvement over five years.

View the complete list of Performance Improvement Leaders.

Findings
The study revealed that 100 hospitals from all across the nation — the 2007 Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals®: Performance Improvement Leaders — have shown a clear ability to improve, raising clinical outcomes and efficiency and growing financial strength.

The winners of the 2007 Performance Improvement Leaders award made the following gains between 2002 and 2006:

• Went from having more patient deaths and adverse safety events than expected to having fewer than expected
• Significantly improved their adherence to core measures protocol during the years studied, 2004–2006
• Increased their expenses a mere 2.5 percent, a rate significantly below the cost of living. Non-winning hospitals' expenses, meanwhile, increased 17.4 percent
• Rose from being barely profitable (0.75 percent) to maintaining a healthy positive profit margin of 6.8 percent
• Discharged patients almost a day earlier, despite increasing patient acuity

Methods
This study is based on the National Benchmarks for Success study and uses a multi-year trending tool. In developing this tool, we devised a methodology that we feel removes the bias that could diminish our ability to highlight true data trends.

The main steps we take in selecting the Performance Improvement Leaders are:

• Building the database of hospitals, including special selection and exclusion criteria:
  This study focuses on short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of patients. The data come from public sources — primarily the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data set and the Medicare Cost Report. The data in this study are from federal fiscal years 2002 through 2006.
  
  
• Classifying hospitals into five study groups according to bed size and teaching status:
  • Major Teaching Hospitals
  • Teaching Hospitals
  • Large Community Hospitals
  • Medium Community Hospitals
  • Small Community Hospitals
  
  
  
• Scoring hospitals on a set of weighted performance measures that are centered on clinical excellence, operating efficiency and financial health, and responsiveness to the community:
  1. Risk-adjusted mortality index
  2. Risk-adjusted complications index
  3. Risk-adjusted patient safety index
  4. Core measures percentile
  5. Severity-adjusted average length of stay
  6. Expense per adjusted discharge, case mix- and wage-adjusted
  7. Operating profit margin
  8. Cash to total debt ratio
  
  
  
• Determining the hospitals that have improved the most, organization-wide, over five years, by ranking hospitals relative to their comparison group

For full details, download the 2007 100 Top Hospitals Performance Improvement Leaders study abstract or click here to order a softbound copy.

Make the 100 Top Hospitals®: Performance Improvement Leaders study work for you:

Want to see how your hospital scored on the 100 Top Hospitals: Performance Improvement Leaders measures? Order a Results Report to see how you compare.

To understand how your hospital's five-year performance improvement compares with your peers, order a Performance Improvement Leaders Report.

For more information, email the 100 Top Hospitals Coordinator at healthcare.pubs@thomsonreuters.com or call us at (800) 568-3282 (option #3).