Look to HCIA-Mercer list for profitability
List seen as objective
For the fourth consecutive year, the performance of the 100 top hospitals as selected by HCIA in Baltimore and William M. Mercer in San Francisco improved significantly over last year’s benchmark performance, and over that of the average U.S. hospital.
Study authors point out that the industry could save $27 billion in expenses if all U.S. hospitals performed as well as the top 100. At that high level of performance, profitability, growth, and equity would increase; inpatient mortality would decrease by 23%, and complications by 17%; and average lengths of stay would drop by almost a full day.
Each year since 1993, HCIA and Mercer have published a list of the top 100 hospitals based on measures related to clinical practices, operations, and financial management. The study is touted by its producers as "the only one based solely on objective, quantitative data consistent and complete across the United States." The firm tests the validity of its performance measures and looks at multiple-year analyses of performance rather than single-year snapshots.
HCIA-Mercer’s disclaimer says the study is aimed at providing a practical comparative foundation for setting improvement goals, and is not intended to provide health care payers with information upon which to base decisions for selecting hospital services.
The study doesn’t take patient satisfaction into account. "We had quite a bit of discussion on including patient satisfaction," says Rachel Hayes, a Mercer principal, "because it is a hugely important issue with a high correlation to quality. But not everyone is using the same survey, so there’s no objective way to collect the data."
Hayes says hospitals will one day see standardized surveys that make it easier for benchmark studies to include patient satisfaction data. But she questions whether they would be good for individual hospitals. "A standardized survey would have to address the lowest common denominator and ask very few tough questions. Hospitals would lose valuable information."
Copies of the HCIA-Mercer study are available from HCIA customer service at (800) 568-3282. The study can also be found at the HCIA Web site at http://www.hcia.com, and at the Mercer Web site at http://www.mercer.com.
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