Medicare Readmission Rates of Indiana Hospitals

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) releases on a quarterly basis the readmission rates of Medicare patients discharged with a diagnosis of acute myocardial infraction (heart attack), heart failure, or pneumonia. The table below shows the relative performance of all Indiana hospitals for these three measures. This data is from patients discharged from July 1, 2007 to March 31, 2011.
"-"        - No Different than US National Rate
"+1"       - Better than US National Rate
"-1"       - Worse than US National Rate
"Small n"  - Number of patients too small to determine performance

		Readmission Rates
Hospital Name	City	Heart Attack	Heart Failure	Pneumonia
ADAMS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	DECATUR	-	-	-
BLUFFTON REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER	BLUFFTON	-	-	-
CAMERON MEMORIAL COMMUNITY HOSPITAL INC	ANGOLA	Small n	-	-
CANCER CARE PARTNERS LLC	MISHAWAKA	N/A	N/A	N/A
CLARK MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	JEFFERSONVILLE	-	-	-
COLUMBUS REGIONAL HOSPITAL	COLUMBUS	-	-	-
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL	MUNSTER	-	-1	-
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL EAST	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL NORTH	INDIANAPOLIS	Small n	-	-
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL OF ANDERSON AND MADISON COUNTY	ANDERSON	-	-	-
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL OF BREMEN INC	BREMEN	Small n	-	-
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL SOUTH	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
DAVIESS COMMUNITY HOSPITAL	WASHINGTON	Small n	-	-
DEACONESS HOSPITAL INC	EVANSVILLE	-	-	-
DEARBORN COUNTY HOSPITAL	LAWRENCEBURG	-	-	-
DECATUR COUNTY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	GREENSBURG	Small n	-	-
DEKALB HEALTH	AUBURN	Small n	-	-
DUKES MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	PERU	Small n	-	-
DUPONT HOSPITAL LLC	FORT WAYNE	Small n	-	-
ELKHART GENERAL HOSPITAL	ELKHART	-	-	-
FAYETTE REGIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM	CONNERSVILLE	-	-	-
FLOYD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AND HEALTH SERVICES	NEW ALBANY	-	-	-
FRANCISCAN PHYSICIANS HOSPITAL LLC	MUNSTER	Small n	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST ANTHONY HEALTH - CROWN POINT	CROWN POINT	-	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST ANTHONY HEALTH - MICHIGAN CITY	MICHIGAN CITY	-	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST ELIZABETH HEALTH - CRAWFORDSVILLE	CRAWFORDSVILLE	Small n	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST ELIZABETH HEALTH - LAFAYETTE CENTRAL	LAFAYETTE	-	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST ELIZABETH HEALTH - LAFAYETTE EAST	LAFAYETTE	-	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST FRANCIS HEALTH - BEECH GROVE	BEECH GROVE	-	-	+1
FRANCISCAN ST FRANCIS HEALTH - INDIANAPOLIS	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST FRANCIS HEALTH - MOORESVILLE	MOORESVILLE	Small n	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST MARGARET HEALTH - DYER	DYER	-	-	-
FRANCISCAN ST MARGARET HEALTH - HAMMOND	HAMMOND	-1	-1	-
GIBSON GENERAL HOSPITAL	PRINCETON	Small n	-	-
GOOD SAMARITAN HOSPITAL	VINCENNES	-	-	-
GREENE COUNTY GENERAL HOSPITAL	LINTON	Small n	-	-
HANCOCK REGIONAL HOSPITAL	GREENFIELD	-	-	-
HARRISON COUNTY HOSPITAL	CORYDON	Small n	-	-
HENDRICKS REGIONAL HEALTH	DANVILLE	-	+1	-
HENRY COUNTY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	NEW CASTLE	Small n	-	-
HOWARD REGIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM	KOKOMO	-	-	-
INDIANA HEART HOSPITAL THE	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
INDIANA ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL LLC	INDIANAPOLIS	N/A	N/A	N/A
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH ARNETT HOSPITAL	LAFAYETTE	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH BALL MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	MUNCIE	+1	+1	+1
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH BEDFORD HOSPITAL	BEDFORD	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH BLACKFORD HOSPITAL	HARTFORD CITY	Small n	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH BLOOMINGTON HOSPITAL	BLOOMINGTON	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH LA PORTE HOSPITAL	LA PORTE	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH MORGAN HOSPITAL INC	MARTINSVILLE	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH NORTH HOSPITAL	CARMEL	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH PAOLI HOSPITAL	PAOLI	Small n	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH STARKE HOSPITAL	KNOX	Small n	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH WEST HOSPITAL	AVON	-	-	-
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH WHITE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	MONTICELLO	Small n	-	-
INDIANAPOLIS VA MEDICAL CENTER	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
IU HEALTH GOSHEN HOSPITAL	GOSHEN	-	-	-
JASPER COUNTY HOSPITAL	RENSSELAER	Small n	-	-
JAY COUNTY HOSPITAL	PORTLAND	Small n	-	-
JOHNSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	FRANKLIN	-	-	-
KENTUCKIANA MEDICAL CENTER LLC	CLARKSVILLE	Small n	Small n	Small n
KING'S DAUGHTERS' HOSPITAL AND HEALTH SERVICESTHE	MADISON	-	-	-
KOSCIUSKO COMMUNITY HOSPITAL	WARSAW	-	-	-
LUTHERAN HOSPITAL OF INDIANA	FORT WAYNE	+1	-	-
MAJOR HOSPITAL	SHELBYVILLE	Small n	-	-
MARGARET MARY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL INC	BATESVILLE	Small n	-	-
MARION GENERAL HOSPITAL	MARION	-	-	-
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	LOGANSPORT	Small n	-	-
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AND HEALTH CARE CENTER	JASPER	-	-	-
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF SOUTH BEND	SOUTH BEND	-	+1	-
METHODIST HOSPITALS INC	GARY	-	-1	-
MONROE HOSPITAL	BLOOMINGTON	Small n	-	-
ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL AT PARKVIEW NORTH LLC	FORT WAYNE	N/A	N/A	N/A
PARKVIEW HOSPITAL	FORT WAYNE	-	+1	+1
PARKVIEW HUNTINGTON HOSPITAL	HUNTINGTON	Small n	-	-
PARKVIEW LAGRANGE HOSPITAL	LAGRANGE	Small n	-	-
PARKVIEW NOBLE HOSPITAL	KENDALLVILLE	Small n	-	-
PARKVIEW WHITLEY HOSPITAL	COLUMBIA CITY	Small n	-	-
PERRY COUNTY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	TELL CITY	Small n	-	-
PHYSICIANS' MEDICAL CENTER LLC	NEW ALBANY	N/A	N/A	N/A
PINNACLE HOSPITAL	CROWN POINT	Small n	-	-
PORTER VALPARAISO HOSPITAL	VALPARAISO	-	-	-
PUTNAM COUNTY HOSPITAL	GREENCASTLE	Small n	-	-
REID HOSPITAL & HEALTH CARE SERVICES	RICHMOND	-	-	-
RIVERVIEW HOSPITAL	NOBLESVILLE	-	-	-
SAINT CATHERINE REGIONAL HOSPITAL	CHARLESTOWN	Small n	-	-
SAINT JOHN'S HEALTH SYSTEM	ANDERSON	-	-	-
SAINT JOSEPH REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER	MISHAWAKA	-	+1	-
SAINT JOSEPH'S REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER - PLYMOUTH	PLYMOUTH	-	-	-
SCHNECK MEDICAL CENTER	SEYMOUR	-	-	-
SCOTT COUNTY  MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AKA SCOTT MEMORIAL	SCOTTSBURG	Small n	-	-
ST CATHERINE HOSPITAL INC	EAST CHICAGO	-	-1	-
ST JOSEPH HOSPITAL	FORT WAYNE	-	-	-
ST JOSEPH HOSPITAL & HEALTH CENTER INC	KOKOMO	Small n	-	-
ST MARY MEDICAL CENTER INC	HOBART	-	-	-
ST MARY'S MEDICAL CENTER OF EVANSVILLE INC	EVANSVILLE	-	-	-
ST MARY'S WARRICK HOSPITAL INC	BOONVILLE	Small n	-	-
ST VINCENT CARMEL HOSPITAL INC	CARMEL	Small n	-	-
ST VINCENT CLAY HOSPITAL INC	BRAZIL	Small n	-	-
ST VINCENT DUNN HOSPITAL INC	BEDFORD	-	-	-
ST VINCENT FRANKFORT HOSPITAL INC	FRANKFORT	Small n	-	-
ST VINCENT HEART CENTER OF INDIANA LLC	INDIANAPOLIS	-	+1	-
ST VINCENT HOSPITAL & HEALTH SERVICES	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
ST VINCENT JENNINGS HOSPITAL INC	NORTH VERNON	Small n	-	-
ST VINCENT MERCY HOSPITAL	ELWOOD	Small n	-	-
ST VINCENT RANDOLPH HOSPITAL INC	WINCHESTER	Small n	-	-
ST VINCENT WILLIAMSPORT HOSPITAL INC	WILLIAMSPORT	Small n	-	-
SULLIVAN COUNTY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL	SULLIVAN	Small n	-	-
TERRE HAUTE REGIONAL HOSPITAL	TERRE HAUTE	-	-	-
THE HEART HOSPITAL AT DEACONESS GATEWAY LLC	NEWBURGH	-	-	Small n
THE ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL OF LUTHERAN HEALTH NETWOR	FT WAYNE	N/A	N/A	N/A
TIPTON HOSPITAL	TIPTON	Small n	-	-
UNION HOSPITAL CLINTON	CLINTON	Small n	-	-
UNION HOSPITAL INC	TERRE HAUTE	-	-	-
UNITY MEDICAL AND SURGICAL HOSPITAL	MISHAWAKA	N/A	N/A	Small n
VA N. INDIANA HEALTHCARE SYSTEM - MARION	MARION	Small n	-	-
WABASH COUNTY HOSPITAL	WABASH	Small n	-	-
WESTVIEW HOSPITAL	INDIANAPOLIS	Small n	-	-
WILLIAM N WISHARD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	INDIANAPOLIS	-	-	-
WITHAM HEALTH SERVICES	LEBANON	-	-	-
WOMEN'S HOSPITAL THE	NEWBURGH	N/A	N/A	N/A

At least 12 Indiana Hospitals Report Having No Central Line Infections

In early February 2012, CMS made hospital central line associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) data available on its HospitalCompare website.

Of the 125 Indiana hospitals listed in HospitalCompare, 88 were eligible for CLABSI reporting. For various reasons (small n, no ICU in hospital, etc...), no rating was provided for 65 hospitals. Of the remaining 22 hospitals, 12 reported no infections.

The 12 Indiana hospitals are:

Hospital	City
ELKHART GENERAL HOSPITAL	ELKHART
WILLIAM N WISHARD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	INDIANAPOLIS
FRANCISCAN ST FRANCIS HEALTH - BEECH GROVE	BEECH GROVE
PORTER VALPARAISO HOSPITAL	VALPARAISO
FLOYD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AND HEALTH SERVICES	NEW ALBANY
REID HOSPITAL & HEALTH CARE SERVICES	RICHMOND
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL EAST	INDIANAPOLIS
DEACONESS HOSPITAL INC	EVANSVILLE
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH BALL MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	MUNCIE
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL	MUNSTER
ST VINCENT HEART CENTER OF INDIANA LLC	INDIANAPOLIS

CMS published this data based on 1Q2011 only. This measure is based on the CDC's NHSN data collection protocol.

ACO Update: Health Affairs Releases a Policy Brief

On January 31, 2012, Health Affairs, a peer-reviewed monthly journal, released a six page Health Policy Brief providing an update of where the US healthcare industry is in its rapid evolution towards accountable care type organizations.

The .pdf of the policy brief can be downloaded here.

The value of this paper is not limited to just the historical overview provided. The authors also give a general overview of some of the ongoing issues of the ACO model (small savings, anti-trust issues, enrollment, etc...).

Readers looking to for deep technical details of ACOs will be disappointed with this paper. However, those looking for a general overview of the current status of the ACO evolution will find this paper informative.

HCAHPS: Top Indiana Hospitals for Patients responding "Definately Would Recommend the Hospital"

CMS released its most recent "Hospital Compare" data set on 1/26/2012 covering acute inpatients discharges from 4/1/2010 to 3/31/2011.

Indiana hospitals continue to outperform the rest of the country in patients reporting favorable experiences. For the specific HCAHPS question about if the patient would recommend the hospital to friends and family, the national average is 70% responding "definitely Yes". Indiana hospitals average 73% responding "definitely yes".

The table below shows the top 20% of Indiana hospitals and their specific performance on this question.

Hospital Name	City	Percent "Definitely Yes"
INDIANA ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL LLC	INDIANAPOLIS	93
ST VINCENT HEART CENTER OF INDIANA LLC	INDIANAPOLIS	91
THE HEART HOSPITAL AT DEACONESS GATEWAY LLC	NEWBURGH	88
KENTUCKIANA MEDICAL CENTER LLC	CLARKSVILLE	88
INDIANA HEART HOSPITAL THE	INDIANAPOLIS	86
PHYSICIANS' MEDICAL CENTER LLC	NEW ALBANY	86
WOMEN'S HOSPITAL THE	NEWBURGH	85
MARGARET MARY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL INC	BATESVILLE	85
HENDRICKS REGIONAL HEALTH	DANVILLE	84
ST VINCENT CARMEL HOSPITAL INC	CARMEL	83
INDIANA UNIVERSITY HEALTH NORTH HOSPITAL	CARMEL	83
ST JOSEPH HOSPITAL & HEALTH CENTER INC	KOKOMO	82
PARKVIEW LAGRANGE HOSPITAL	LAGRANGE	82
FRANCISCAN ST FRANCIS HEALTH - MOORESVILLE	MOORESVILLE	82
ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL AT PARKVIEW NORTH LLC	FORT WAYNE	81
SAINT JOSEPH REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER	MISHAWAKA	81
DUPONT HOSPITAL LLC	FORT WAYNE	81
COMMUNITY HOSPITAL NORTH	INDIANAPOLIS	81
ST MARY MEDICAL CENTER INC	HOBART	81

2012 Baldrige Examiner Training in Indiana

The Partnership for Excellence (TPE), the local / regional Baldrige program for Indiana, has announced an examiner training session in Indiana for 2012. In 2011, training sessions were only available in Ohio.

Applicants to be TPE Baldrige Examiners will have a training session at the VHA Central office in Indianapolis (by the Fashion Mall) on November 15-16, 2012. Other sessions are available throughout Ohio and West Virginia over the next month as well.

You can learn more about TPE and the process to become a TPE Baldrige Examiner at: http://www.thepartnershipforexcellence.org/

Note that under the new eligibility rules for the National Baldrige award, organizations must first participate through their local Baldrige program (unless certain exceptions apply). A great way for organizations to start their Baldrige journey is to have a trained examiner within their organization.

New Baldrige Eligibility Rules Impacts Indiana Organizations

On December 21, 2011, the national Baldrige program announced via its blog that the eligibility rules for 2012 have changed. Under the new rules, organizations interested in applying for the national Baldrige Award must meet six new conditions as follows:

1. Be a previous Baldrige Award recipient
2. Have received the top-tier award from an Alliance member award program within the past 5 years
3. Have received a site visit at the national level within the past 5 years
4. Have received a combined scoring band range of 8 or better (e.g., process band 4 and results band 4) in the past 5 years
5. Have 25% or more of your employees/staff outside of your organization's home state
6. Have no Alliance member program available for your organization.

This impacts interested Indiana organizations because Indiana now does have an Alliance member program  available: The Partnership for Excellence.

In other words, if your organization is just getting started with the Baldrige journey, it generally must win The Partnership for Excellence's not yet named Indiana award before it can apply for the national Baldrige award.

Given the amount and type of assistance The Partnership for Excellence makes available to organizations, this change will likely accelerate the Baldrige learning curve for an organization rather than slow down or delay progress towards excellence.

You can learn more about The Partnership for Excellence at its website: http://www.thepartnershipforexcellence.org/html/home.htm

You can learn more about the national Baldrige program at its website: http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/

Release of 2010 Indiana Medical Errors Report Poorly Covered by Media

Although dated for 11/7/2011, the 2010 Indiana Medical Error Report was released to the public on 11/28/2011.

The link to the press release is here.
The link to the report itself is here.
The link to the data tables (containing facility specific numbers) is here.

In the month since the release of this report, coverage from the media has been disappointing. A brief google scan of Indiana news coverage shows the following:

• The Indy Star and WTHR carried the same small piece on 11/29/2011 highlighting that bed sores were the most commonly reported error and foreign objects left inside patients after surgery was the second. To it's credit, the report did not single out any hospital with high raw numbers.
• However, on the day that the report was released, WTHR posted a separate story on its website highlighting that medical errors had reached a new high. Unfortunately, it reported raw numbers of events at various central Indiana facilities without any type of responsible interpretation. This story did attempt to offer readers advice on how to stay safe, however, the reporter clearly confused prevention concepts (surgery site marking, patient turning) with error reporting ("...what can you do if you suspect an error?).
• On 12/2/2011, the Palladium-Item from Richmond, IN, carried a story highlighting the performance of its local hospital (Reid). It focused on the two patients that Reid reported fell in 2010 causing serious disability or death. It appears that the reporter (Pam Tharp) did interview hospital officials (a vice president, the director of patient safety and quality, and a spokesman) and provided quotes to balance the reported numbers. The story then proceeded to report the 5-Year reporting high, but noted possible explanations (changes in operational definitions) for this.
• The Herald-Bulletin (Anderson), ran a story on 12/8/2011 describing the performance of the two area hospitals. The CEO of Community hospital provided detail of the hospitals process to minimize missing sponges and that it seeks to learn from its errors. The President of Saint John's Hospital and its CNO both provided similar detail as to how it prevents bed sores. Healthcare quality professionals will be happy to see that this article also noted that "Medical errors generally are not the sole result of people’s actions but rather the failure of the systems and processes used in providing health care... The requirement to report events identifies persistent problems, encourages increased awareness of patient safety issues and assists in the development of evidence-based initiatives to improve patient safety."

Of the above referenced coverage, it would appear that the reporter from the Herald-Bulletin (Abbey Dole) provided the most responsible reporting of the annual Medical Error report. With a story that could easily be irresponsibly covered to incite and inflame the public, this reporter educated the public on how the medical error reporting system helps healthcare in Indiana become safer.

CMS Approves ACO for Central Indiana

Yesterday, CMS announced that 32 applications for Pioneer ACO from health systems across the country have been approved. The Franciscan Alliance was approved for the Indianapolis and Central Indiana region.

The press release from the Franciscan Alliance can be found here: http://stfrancisnews.blogspot.com/2011/12/franciscan-alliance-selected-to.html

The press release fact sheet from CMS announcing the 32 Pioneer ACOs can be found here: http://www.cms.gov/apps/media/press/factsheet.asp?Counter=4225

Over the past several months, the concept and model of an ACO has changed several times. This announcement is specifically for the Pioneer ACO model. Applications for the Advanced Payment Model is not due to CMS until Jan 2012.

This link will take you to a general resource about the Pioneer ACO Model: http://innovations.cms.gov/initiatives/aco/pioneer/

This link will take you to a general resource about the Advanced Payment ACO Model: http://innovations.cms.gov/initiatives/aco/advance-payment/

The most recent final rules from CMS concerning ACOs was published Oct 20, 2011. That document can be downloaded here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-11-02/pdf/2011-27461.pdf

Healthcare quality professionals will be most interested in the list of 33 quality measures that will impact payments to ACOs.  That list is on page 67889, or the 88th page into this above document.

Schneck Medical Center (Seymour, IN) Named 2011 Baldrige Award Recipient

Schneck Medical Center of Seymour, Indiana, was named a 2011 Baldrige Award Recipient in the Healthcare Category. Schneck is the first organization from Indiana to receive the Baldrige Award.

Until recently, Indiana did not have a State level Baldrige-based award program. Schneck thus partnered with the Ohio Partnership for Excellence. The Ohio program has since expanded its scope and now covers the State of Indiana (as well as West Virginia). The program has now been renamed The Partnership for Excellence.

The press release announcing the other Baldrige Award winners can be found here.

The profile of Schneck Medical Center released with the announcement can be found here.

Below are excerpts from the profile of Schneck Medical Center outlining its quality performance that may be interesting to the healthcare quality professional. Note that the 50 page Baldrige application from Schneck will become public domain in a few months and thus awailable for public examination and learning. Schneck (as required by all Baldrige award winners) will also be participating in national and regional conferences where they will be sharing thier Baldrige journey.

• SMC consistently demonstrates high levels of performance in relation to patient-focused health care measures. Specifically, on 17 of 22 core measures reported for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), SMC scored 100 percent in the second quarter of 2011.
• SMC ranked second among 94 hospitals in its geographic region and outperformed all local competitors when measured for its value-based purchasing (VBP). VBP is a method that holds health care providers accountable for the quality and cost of their services through a system of rewards and consequences. Incentives discourage inappropriate, unnecessary, and costly care.
• Patient satisfaction surveys reflect SMC’s year-to-year favorable performance, meeting or exceeding top 10 percent or top 25 percent levels on nine of 10 Press Ganey (a national consulting firm focused on improving health care performance) measures, including inpatient quality of care, inpatient family support, inpatient coordination of care, and inpatient customer service. On measures of ambulatory care, including timeliness, customer service, and ambulatory education, SMC’s performance exceeds the top 25 percent level.
• SMC’s commitment to a “Patient First” culture has led to many innovative health care options. For example, to address its limited treatment options for myocardial infarctions, SMC and its largest competitor, located 25 miles away, created a collaborative initiative for coordinated handoffs of patients needing emergency cardiac catheterizations. Through this effort, “door-to-balloon” times (the critical period for assessing and diagnosing a heart attack and delivering the needed intervention) have been reduced from 120 to as low as 60 minutes, ensuring patients get the best and quickest treatment.
• SMC has achieved high performance levels in all areas measured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, with SMC outperforming its Indiana peers from 2008 to 2011 (year-to-date) in the areas related to the ability of nurses and physicians to listen, understand, and provide clear discharge instructions.
• SMC demonstrates role-model performance through its low overall rates of hospital-acquired infections, which have been maintained at or below 1 percent since 2008. There have been no occurrences of postoperative infections from bariatric surgeries, one of SMC’s focus areas. No patient has acquired ventilator-associated pneumonia since 2009, while central line-associated bloodstream infections have remained at low numbers since 2008, with zero cases in 2011 (year-to-date).
• SMC demonstrates excellence in measures of its operating margin, cash flow, and cash position, with its reported results comparing favorably to the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) “A-” and “AA” rated median levels. From 2008 to 2010, SMC’s gross revenue results showed growth in the organization’s strategic focus areas—women’s health, joint replacement, noninvasive cardiac care, cancer care, and bariatric surgery.

Study Shows Baldrige Hospitals Perform Better than Non-Baldrige Hospitals

Thomson Reuters recently released a research paper investigating the performance of Baldrige hospitals vs. non-Baldrige hospitals in key outcome measures. In this study, Baldrige hospitals were defined as hospitals that have won the Baldrige award or have publicly disclosed that they have received a site visit. Non-Baldrige hospitals were the remaining hospitals in the 100 Top Hospitals data set.

Of interest to healthcare quality professionals:

• Baldrige hospitals were significantly more likley than their peers to display faster five-year performance improvement.
• Baldrige hospitals performed better than their peers in the CMS core measures by 4.90 percantage points.

Although not statistically significant, the study also showed that Baldrige hospitals performed better on the following measures than their peers:

• risk-adjusted mortality
• patient safety index
• severity-adjusted length of stay.
• adjusted operating profit margin

The research paper can be downloaded from NIST here or from Thompson Reuters here.

The NIST press release associated with this research paper can be found here. For your convenience, excerpts from this press release have been copied and pasted below. Sections of interest to healthcare quality professionals are in red with some emphasis added.

New Study Finds that Baldrige Award Recipient Hospitals Significantly Outperform their Peers

A new report has found that healthcare organizations that have won Baldrige National Quality Awards for performance excellence or been considered for a Baldrige Award site visit outperform other hospitals in nearly every metric used to determine the 100 Top Hospitals, a national recognition given by Thomson Reuters.

Commissioned by the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, a private organization, and conducted by Thomson Reuters, the report found that Baldrige hospitals were six times more likely to be counted among the 100 Top Hospitals, which represent the top 3 percent of hospitals in the United States, and that they statistically outperform the 100 Top Hospitals on core measures established by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Health care organizations have accounted for more than 50 percent of Baldrige award applicants since 2005.
Baldrige hospitals also were far more likely than their peers to be cited for marked improvement over a span of five years. According to the report, "[m]ore than 27 percent of Baldrige winner hospitals also won a 100 Top Hospitals: Performance Improvement Leaders award, while only 3 percent of their non-Baldrige peers won the award."

"The results of the Thomson Reuters study confirm what we've known for years: using the Baldrige Criteria and the earnest pursuit of the Baldrige evaluation will improve your organization by nearly every measure of success, be it in outcomes, safety, customer and employee satisfaction, or profitability," says Baldrige Performance Excellence Program Director Harry Hertz.

The study, Comparison of Baldrige Award Applicants and Recipients with Peer Hospitals on a National Balanced Scorecard, is available at www.nist.gov/baldrige/upload/baldrige-hospital-research-paper.pdf.

Indiana Hospitals Perform Extremely Well in the HCAHPS Overall Rating of Hospital Question

CMS's October 2011 release of HCAHPS data covered the time period January 2010 to December 2010. The national average of % of patients who responded 9 or 10 to the overall rating of hospital question was 68%.

The state of Indiana, with an average of 73%, was tied as the 4th highest state in the country.

The top performing States are:
   1st:  IA - 75%
   2nd:  KS - 74%
   2nd:  NE - 74%
   4th:  ID - 73%
   4th:  IN - 73%
   4th:  LA - 73%

Within the State of Indiana, 109 hospitals reported their performance on this question. Of these, 84 performned at the national average or higher. In other words, 77% of Indiana hospitals perform at or above the national average for the HCAHPS overall rating question.

The top three Indiana hospitals for this HCAHPS question are also specialty hospitals. They are:
   1st:  Surgical Hospital of Munster (Munster) - 91%
   2nd:  Indiana Orthopedic Hospital (Indianapolis)- 90%
   3rd:  St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana (Indianapolis)- 89%

Congratulations to Indiana hospitals for providing outstanding patient centric care!