WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – North Carolina Baptist Hospital, part of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, has ranked as one of the Solucient Top 100 Hospitals in the nation, as reported in the May 24 issue of Modern Healthcare.
"The list takes a uniform approach to identify hospitals that excel on a range of clinical and financial measures when stacked against their peers," the magazine said in an article introducing the list. The list is considered by many in health care to be the nation’s most objective and comprehensive listing of top hospitals in terms of operational benchmarks.
Baptist Hospital was one of 15 in the category of "major teaching hospitals," and one of 39 hospitals that appeared on the list for the first time. The study included all 3,095 acute-care hospitals with 25 or more beds in service, the magazine said.
The Top 100 listing is based on three components of hospital performance: clinical excellence, operating efficiency and financial health, and responsiveness to the community.
"The Solucient benchmarks are areas in which North Carolina Baptist Hospital has striven to excel, and we are thrilled to be included in this elite group of high-achieving hospitals," said Len B. Preslar Jr., Baptist’s president and CEO. "This achievement is especially meaningful to an academic medical center, which generally faces far more operational and financial challenges than a community hospital."
Preslar said that in recent years, the hospital had focused heavily on evidence-based medicine, excellent patient care, advancements in medical and recordkeeping technology, and fiscal responsibility. "It reflects a combined effort of the hospital and its medical staff that we have reached this level of service, representing a new foundation from which we will improve."
Jon S. Abramson, M.D., head of Wake Forest University Physicians, said, "The physicians and the hospital have worked very closely in recent years on several initiatives related to effectiveness, efficiency and quality of care. These efforts are yielding many successes, and that trend will be ongoing."
The study, officially known as Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success, 11th Edition, found that if all acute care hospitals performed at the same level as the nation's top hospitals, 95,000 more Medicare patients could survive and an additional 77,000 patient stays could be complication-free each year – at an estimated annual savings of $8.8 billion.
If these same standards applied to all hospital inpatients, the impact would be even greater, the study adds.
"The management teams at the 100 Top Hospitals have led their facilities to the highest performance levels in the nation by adopting new approaches that facilitate optimum care for patients, based on their real needs," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president of Solucient's Center for Healthcare Improvement, which is responsible for the 100 Top Hospitals program.
Solucient, a company that collects, analyzes and disseminates health care information, used data collected by Medicare in 2001 for its Provider Analysis and Review and its own hospital database, culled mostly from 2002 Medicare cost reports, to generate the financial ratings used in the study, Modern Healthcare reported.
Wake Forest Baptist is also ranked as one of "America’s Best Hospitals" by U.S. News & World Report, which is based in part on national reputation.
Only three other North Carolina hospitals – Mission Hospitals of Asheville, NorthEast Medical Center of Concord, and FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital of Pinehurst – were included in the Solucient Top 100. The list is available on the web at http://www.100tophospitals.com.
###
Media Contacts: Mark Wright, mwright@wfubmc.edu, Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu, or Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu, at 336-716-4587.