Studer Group Partners Receive Emergency Medicine Excellence Award(TM) from HealthGrades

Published Date: 06/23/2010

HealthGrades announced that the first annual analysis of hospital emergency medicine programs found that the best-performing hospitals consistently outperformed all other hospitals for all eleven cohorts studied.

Nationwide, 255 hospitals had risk-adjusted mortality rates low enough to be recipients of the HealthGrades 2010 Emergency Medicine Excellence Award. These 255 recipients represent the top 5% of the nation’s 4,907 short-term, acute-care hospitals. These 255 hospitals, as a group, comprise the Emergency Medicine Excellence hospitals whose outcomes were compared to all other hospitals. To read the full study, click here.

HealthGrades analyzed Medicare data of over 5 million patient records for emergency department admissions from 2006 through 2008 for eleven diagnoses, and found the following trends:

• If all hospitals studied performed at the level of best-performing hospitals, an additional 118,014 people could have potentially survived their emergency hospitalization.
• The most common causes for emergency department admissions by Medicare patients were pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and sepsis.
• Thirty-one states have one or more Emergency Medicine Excellence Award hospitals.
• Ohio, Arizona and Michigan had the lowest risk-adjusted mortality for Medicare patients admitted through the emergency department.

To identify the top-performing hospitals in the area of emergency medicine, HealthGrades analyzed mortality data for virtually every hospital in the country. HealthGrades analyzed patients admitted to the hospital through the emergency department for the following eleven diagnoses (cohorts):

• Bowel Obstruction
• Chronic Obstructive Pulomary Disease
• Diabetic Acidosis and Coma
• Gastrointestinal Bleed
• Heart Attack
• Pancreatitis
• Pneumonia
• Pulmonary Embolism
• Respiratory Failure
• Sepsis
• Stroke

To receive a rating (z-score) in a cohort, a hospital must have a minimum of 30 patients admitted through the emergency department over the three years of study and at least five cases in the most recent year of analysis (2008). To be eligible for the Emergency Medicine Excellence Award, a hospital must have a rating in a minimum of nine of the eleven cohorts.

Award recipients were determined using the following process:

1. For each hospital and cohort, the observed and predicted numbers of inhospital deaths were summed for patients admitted through the emergency department, and a z-score was calculated.
2. For each eligible hospital, the straight average of their cohort z-scores was calculated.
3. The eligible hospitals were then rank ordered by their average z-score, and 255 had risk-adjusted mortality rates low enough to qualify them as recipients of the HealthGrades Emergency Medicine Excellence Award.

The final group of 255 hospitals represents the top 5% of the 4,907 short-term acute care hospitals. For more detail, see HealthGrades Emergency Medicine Excellence Award Methodology 2010 available at www.HealthGrades.com.

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The following Studer Group partners received the Emergency Medicine Excellence Award™ from HealthGrades.

• University Medical Center in Tucson, AZ
• Mills - Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame, CA
• Mills Health Center in San Mateo, CA
• Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital in Auburn, CA
• Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch, CA
• Memorial Hospital Pembroke in Pembroke Pines, FL
• Memorial Hospital West in Pembroke Pines, FL
• Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, FL
• Advocate Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, IL
• Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, IL
• Advocate Trinity Hospital in Chicago, IL
• Saint Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates, IL
• Clarian Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, IN
• Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis, IN
• Clark Memorial Hospital in Jeffersonville, IN
• Community Hospital in Munster, IN
• Carolinas Medical Center - Union in Monroe, NC
• Mercy Saint Anne Hospital in Toledo, OH
• Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights, OH
• Summa Barberton Hospital in Barberton, OH
• Union Hospital in Dover, OH
• Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, TN
• Baptist Medical Center in San Antonio, TX
• Saint Lukes Lutheran Hospital in San Antonio, TX
• Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, VA

Read the full article and see the list of all hospital recipients.