St. Vincent Charity Hospital Named Among 100 Top Hospitals for Performance Improvement Leadership, 2005 by Solucient

Rate of overall improvement for hospital - wide performance among best in nation

Cleveland (May 2006) – St. Vincent Charity Hospital is among the nation’s 100 top hospitals for performance improvement (PI), scoring in the 99th percentile for overall performance improvement over a five-year period (2000-2004), according to a study by Solucient – a nationally recognized leader in quality standards measurement.

The Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: Performance Improvement Leaders, 2005 award recognizes U.S. hospitals that made consistent improvement on clinical measures, including lowering patient mortality and complications, reducing adverse safety events and shortening patient length of stay. According to the study, St. Vincent Charity Hospital scored in the 91st percentile for mortality, the 92nd percentile for complications, the 94th percentile for patient safety and the 70th percentile for length of stay. The percentile score is an indicator of the hospital’s comparative standings among similar hospitals, nationwide.

"Receiving this recognition is a very significant achievement that speaks to our long-standing focus on quality, outcomes and patient safety," said St. Vincent Charity Hospital President and CEO Jeffery S. Jeney. "Our organization-wide culture of performance improvement benefits our patients and the community in terms of lives saved, access to care, better outcomes and greater patient satisfaction."

According to Solucient, PI Leaders are far better aligned for improvement across the entire organization than their peers and are well-positioned to continue to improve at a significantly faster rate.

PI Leaders also made improvements in financial performance. For example, PI Leaders had significantly lower increases in expenses of only 8 percent, compared with a 20 percent increase in expenses among other hospitals, and also experienced a 5.3 percent growth in patient volume from 2000 to 2004, compared with a 1.5 percent volume loss among peers. St. Vincent Charity Hospital scored in the 77th percentile for expenses and the 85th percentile for growth in patient volume.

The study showed that PI Leaders have achieved these improvements despite increased caseloads, rising costs, reimbursement constraints and, often, higher volumes of emergency department (ED) patients who are significantly sicker than patients at peer hospitals. According to Solucient, the majority of hospitals across the nation are not showing substantial improvement in the areas studied.

"We are extremely proud of our Caregivers and medical staff for giving the best of themselves every day to ensure the highest quality of care for our patients," Jeney said.

PI Leaders were awarded in five categories, based on hospital size and teaching status. St. Vincent Charity Hospital was named a top 100 performer in the category: medium-size community hospital (100 beds to 249 beds).

More information on the PI Leaders study is available at 100tophospitals.com.