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The Leapfrog Group Identifies Nation's 'Highest Value' Hospitals

Posted on: Thursday, 11 December 2008, 05:00 CST

13 Hospitals Meet Quality and Efficiency Criteria in Four Major Procedures

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Leapfrog Group has identified the nation's Highest Value Hospitals based on a review of over 1,220 hospitals participating in the annual Leapfrog Hospital Survey. The Leapfrog Group is the first national quality organization to evaluate and identify hospitals providing excellent quality and at the same time demonstrating an appropriate use of resources for specific procedures.

"Consumers and purchasers are demanding both quality and cost effectiveness," said Leah Binder, CEO of The Leapfrog Group. "These hospitals demonstrate that it is possible to deliver quality health care and to keep costs lower by using expensive health care resources efficiently."

Leapfrog is currently the only national organization asking hospitals for efficiency information, according to Binder. "We believe it's important to recognize not only good outcomes, but prudent use of resources as well. Quality and efficiency must go hand-in-hand if this nation is ever going to fix its broken health care system," she said.

The hospitals are (alphabetical order by state):

• Desert Regional Medical Center, Palm Springs, California
• Mercy Medical Center Redding, Redding, California
• St. Mary's Hospital And Medical Center, Grand Junction, Colorado
• St. John's Hospital, Springfield, Illinois
• St. Luke's Hospital, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
• Fairview Southdale Hospital, Edina, Minnesota
• Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital, Saint Louis Park, Minnesota
• Regions Hospital, Saint Paul, Minnesota
• North Mississippi Medical Center, Tupelo, Mississippi
• St. Luke's Hospital, Maumee, Ohio
• Providence St Vincent Medical Center, Portland, Oregon
• Mercy General Health Partners (Sherman Campus), Muskegon, Michigan
• St. Clare's Hospital Of Weston Inc, Weston, Wisconsin

The hospitals were deemed "highest value" based on their efficiency scores -- a combination of their quality and resource utilization scores -- for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and pneumonia care. To make Leapfrog's Highest Value list, a hospital had to have a top efficiency of care score for at least three of these four procedures and conditions. Resource use was measured by the hospital's severity-adjusted average length of stay for that procedure, inflated by the readmission rate. Quality scores are based on meeting appropriate processes of care measures, and (for CABG and PCI) hospital volume and risk-adjusted mortality.

Earlier this year 26 hospitals and seven children's hospitals were named 2008 Top Hospitals, based on results of the voluntary Leapfrog Hospital Survey. The survey is the nation's premier hospital patient safety evaluation tool and provides consumers and health care purchasers with up-to-date assessments of participating hospitals' quality and safety at its Web site, www.leapfroggroup.org.

Leapfrog Highest Value Hospital Awards will be presented at the Leapfrog Annual Meeting, Palomar Hotel, Washington, DC, December 12, 2008. Media are invited to the awards presentation to take place at the breakfast, 8:30-10 AM. The award is sponsored by CIGNA, Aetna, United Healthcare and Boehringer-Ingelheim.

The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org) uses its members' collective leverage to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality, and affordability of health care for Americans. The Leapfrog Group was founded in November 2000 by the Business Roundtable and is supported by its members, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and other sources.

SOURCE The Leapfrog Group

Source: PR Newswire

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