St. John’s Hospital Recognized by The Leapfrog Group and the Midwest Business Group on Health as one of the Nation’s ‘Highest Value’ Hospitals

CHICAGO, Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ – St. John’s Hospital of Springfield, Illinois has been identified by The Leapfrog Group as one of only 13 hospitals in the nation to earn the designation “Highest Value Hospital,” 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 Larry Boress, president and CEO of the Midwest Business Group on Health. “St. John’s Hospital demonstrates that it is possible to deliver quality health care and keep costs lower by using expensive health care resources efficiently.”

Leapfrog is currently the only national organization asking hospitals for efficiency information. “We believe it’s important to recognize not only good outcomes, but prudent use of resources as well,” said Leah Binder, CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “Quality and cost effectiveness must go hand-in-hand if this nation is ever going to fix its broken health care system.”

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, at the Palomar Hotel in Washington, DC, December 12, 2008. The award is sponsored by Aetna, CIGNA and Wellpoint.

The Leapfrog Group 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. www.leapfroggroup.org

The Midwest Business Group on Health is one of the nation’s leading business groups of private and public employers, whose 96+ members employ over 2 million lives, spending more than $2.5 billion on health care benefits on an annual basis. The non-profit MBGH offers employers a variety of health benefit educational seminars, networking opportunities, quality and community initiatives, demonstration projects and group purchasing programs. MBGH is a member of the National Business Coalition on Health. www.mbgh.org.

SOURCE Midwest Business Group on Health; The Leapfrog Group