Thomson Reuters' top 10 health systems: Who made the cut?

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Ten health systems have been tapped as this year's “best” by Thomson Reuters for providing paramount care--better outcomes, survival and patient satisfaction--over their peers. The results were published May 31 in Thomson Reuters’ third annual "10 Top Health Systems" study.

This year’s study included more than 300 health systems that were classified as having two or more acute care member hospitals; eight performance measures were analyzed.

The eight performance measured were:
  • Mortality index;
  • Complications index;
  • Patient safety index;
  • Core measures mean percent;
  • 30-day mortality;
  • 30-day readmission;
  • Length of stay; and
  • Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores.

“To survive in an industry challenged by a slow-to-improve national economy, increased competition, and a new set of rules imposed by healthcare reform, providers must deliver ever-higher quality and become more efficient—doing more with potentially lower reimbursements,” the report stated.


The top 10 hospital systems had mortality rates that were nearly 30 percent lower than other systems and complication rates that were 13 percent less, according to Thomson Reuters. Additionally, in terms of patient safety, the top hospital systems made fewer errors and also scored better in terms of patient satisfaction.

On top of these achievements, the hospital systems also followed standards of care more directly and patients saw a reduced length of stay compared to non-winning systems, 4.7 days versus 5.2 days.

After stratifying for performance quintiles based on performance, the researchers found that top-performing systems cared for sicker patients and those who were less well off.

This year’s 10 winners are:
  1. Advocate Health Care, Oak Brook, Ill.
  2. Cape Cod Healthcare, Hyannis, Mass.
  3. CareGroup Healthcare System, Boston
  4. Kettering Health Network, Dayton, Ohio
  5. Maury Regional Healthcare System, Columbia, Tenn.
  6. Mayo Foundation, Rochester, Minn.
  7. NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Ill.
  8. Ohio Health, Columbus, Ohio
  9. Partners HealthCare, Boston
  10. Spectrum Health, Grand Rapids, Mich.

The 10 winning systems had a total of 51 member hospitals and a total of 250,827 patient discharges in 2009.

The report uses data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) dataset and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Compare dataset. Each year, Thomson Reuters names the top 100 hospitals in the U.S. See this year's full results here.

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