The Premier Healthcare Alliance bestowed 21 of the nation's top hospitals and three health systems for their commitment to outstanding patient care and operational efficiency with the 2010 Premier Award for Quality (AFQ) at an award dinner Wednesday night in Washington, DC.
According to Susan DeVore, Premier president and CEO, there were 3,788 hospitals and 346 healthcare systems nationwide that were eligible to receive the AFQ. The award recognizes leading healthcare organizations that efficiently provide outstanding patient care and consistently set the standard in clinical excellence through using performance-based criteria, including clinical quality outcomes, resource utilization, and clinical process indicators.
All acute care inpatient facilities in the United States that submitted data to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the CMS Hospital Compare project were considered for the AFQ, according to DeVore.
To determine winners, Premier used MedPar 2008 data to calculate quality and efficiency indexes for 62 disease groups and at the overall hospital level. Quality was measured by the incidence of three adverse outcomes: mortality, morbidity and complications, which were combined into a single quality index using preference weightings from the corporate hospital rating project. The efficiency index was generated using length of stay data, DeVore said.
This year's Premier AFQ award winners are:
- Albert Einstein Healthcare Network of Philadelphia
- Albert Einstein Medical Center of Philadelphia
- Beebe Medical Center of Lewes, Del.
- Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center of Portsmouth, Va.
- Griffin Hospital of Derby, Conn.
- Inova Fair Oaks Hospitals of Fairfax, Va.
- Legacy Meridian Park Hospital of Tualatin, Ore.
- Maury Regional Medical Center of Columbia, Tenn.
- Memorial Healthcare System of Hollywood, Fla.
- Memorial Hospital Central of Colorado Springs, Colo.
- Memorial Hospital Miramar of Miramar, Fla.
- Memorial Hospital Pembroke of Pembroke Pines, Fla.
- Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital of Darby, Pa.
- Mercy General Hospital of Sacramento, Calif.
- MetroHealth Medical Center of Cleveland
- Palomar Medical Center of Escondido, Calif.
- Palomar Pomerado Health of San Diego
- Paoli Hospital, Main Line Health System of Paoli, Pa.
- Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center of Torrance, Calif.
- Saint Vincent Health Center of Erie, Pa.
- Saints Medical Center of Lowell, Mass.
- Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital of Brockton, Mass.
- SSM St. Mary's Health Center of St. Louis
- St. Joseph's Medical Center of Stockton, Calif.