The Lewin Group’s Updated 2008 Hospital System Rankings Reflect Large Variation in Care Quality and Patient Satisfaction

Expanded analyses of quality and satisfaction measures allow 120 health systems to compare their performance to other systems nation wide.

Falls Church, VA, (January 14, 2009) –

The Lewin Group, one of the country’s preeminent public policy consulting organizations, in conjunction with the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), has expanded and updated its 2008 Hospital Systems Rankings. The new rankings use quality and patient satisfaction data provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to rate 120 U.S. hospital systems containing four or more hospitals.

These rankings are the only source of information administrators can use to analyze their individual system’s performance in the areas of patient care quality and satisfaction as well as make comparisons with systems across the country. They reflect large differences in both care quality and patient satisfaction across 120 hospital systems that provide over 36 percent of U.S. hospital care. Some examples of the differences in rankings include:

Performance on heart failure quality measures approaches the 98 percent rate of the top performing system and is closer to 74 percent in the lowest performing one.
Systems ranged from 71 to 95 percent on measures of surgical infection prevention and from 74 to 99 percent on pneumonia care.
Regarding patient satisfaction, the difference between high and low performing systems was even larger, ranging from 44 to 81 percent of patients who assigned the hospital a 9 or 10 quality rating on a 10-point scale and from 51 to 85 percent of patients who definitely would recommend the hospital to others.

By pooling information from all hospitals in a system, The Lewin Group created system-wide performance measures that are much more actionable than hospital-specific measures, which are often difficult for system leaders to combine. While data from small hospitals is hard to interpret because of small samples, the system rankings pool information from all the system’s hospitals to provide a comprehensive view of patient experiences across the entire system. Systems with as few as four hospitals are included, adding over 40 systems to those ranked in the initial 2007 report. The new rankings now include quality data for all of 2007 as well as 2007 patient satisfaction data from 50 additional hospitals.

“Health system leaders can now manage more effectively with system-level information about quality and patient satisfaction,” said David Bender, vice president of The Lewin Group. “Tools like these allow systems to capitalize on their strengths and prioritize to focus their improvement efforts.”

The rankings are available at http://www.lewin.com and will be updated quarterly.

About The Lewin Group
The Lewin Group, an Ingenix company, is a premier national health care and human services consulting firm with more than 35 years’ experience finding answers and solving problems for leading organizations in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. The Lewin Group provides its clients with high-quality products and insightful support helping them maximize the delivery of programs and services that make a difference in the lives of their constituents. For more information on The Lewin Group, visit http://www.lewin.com.

About Ingenix
Ingenix, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), transforms organizations and improves health care through information and technology. Organizations rely on its innovative products, services and consulting to improve the delivery and operations of their business. More information about Ingenix can be obtained at http://www.ingenix.com.

Source: Ingenix