St. John's Named Top 100 Hospital
St. John’s Named One of the Nation's 100 Top Hospitals by Solucient
For a Second time this Year St. John’s Receives National Recognition from Solucient
JOPLIN, MO – March 12, 2007 – St. John’s Regional Medical Center was named for a second top 100 hospital award by Solucient, part of Thomson Healthcare, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare. In November of last year, Solucient named St. John’s a Top 100 Cardiovascular Hospital.
This additional award as “A Top 100 National Hospital” recognizes hospitals that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, financial performance, efficiency, and growth in patient volume. This is the first time St. John’s has been recognized with this honor, and the third time Solucient has presented the hospital with a national award in recent years.
The 2006 Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study appears in the March 12 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine.
“We are thrilled to be recognized by Solucient for this latest award. To be the recipient of dual awards in the same year is a great honor. We are very pleased to share this news with the community.” said Debbie Linnes, St. John’s President and CEO. “It’s a testament of our hard work and focus on our patient care and outcomes, as well as our business performance. Our employees, physicians and volunteers, all share a part of this tremendous achievement.” She said.
Linnes continued, "St. John's has a recognized heritage of delivering compassionate care combined with the latest technology to the four-state area. This national award demonstrates that we are committed to enhancing the quality of care to our patients and their families. We believe everyone deserves a choice of selecting the best medical services available, and we want our community to have access to St. John's, as miracles happen here everyday!"
Research Highlights
More than half of the winning hospitals in the 2006 study are from the Midwest, and 30 of the 100 Top Hospitals facilities are in two states — Michigan and Ohio. When researchers evaluated hospital performance on a state-by-state basis, nine out of 12 Midwest states placed in the top two quintiles. The Midwest was also the top region in hospital performance in the 2004 edition of the 100 Top Hospitals national study.
At the other end of the spectrum, nearly two-thirds of states in the South (10 out of 17) ranked in the lowest two quintiles.
"The heavy concentration of high-performing hospitals in the Midwest represents the effectiveness and commitment of hospital leaders in the region,” says Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president, performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs, Center for Healthcare Improvement, Thomson Healthcare. “When 75 percent of the states in a single region perform at such high levels, it reflects a single-minded focus on raising performance levels. The concentration of 30 percent of the 100 Top Hospitals in Michigan and Ohio is a tribute to the effort these hospitals’ boards, CEOs, and medical staff leaders have made to increase the value of services to their communities and patients.”
Other key findings of the study include:
- If all hospitals performed like the benchmark hospitals, more than 100,000 additional patients could survive each year, and an additional 114,000 could avoid complications.
- With 25 percent higher admissions per bed, benchmark hospitals treated more patients than non-winning hospitals and also treated patients who were sicker and required more complex treatment.
- The 100 Top Hospitals facilities spent an average of 12 percent less, per discharge, than peer hospitals.
- Median total profit margin at 100 Top Hospitals winners was nearly three times the median of peer hospitals.
- Salaries and benefits were $3,200 more a year per full-time staff member at benchmark hospitals.
The 14th edition of the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study uses a balanced scorecard approach and scores hospitals 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.
More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com. Copies of the 100 Top Hospitals report can be purchased by calling Solucient at 800.568.3282 or logging on to www.100tophospitals.com.
Editors Note: Additional information can be found at www.stj.com or at http://www.100TopHospitals.com under the "News/Press Room."