University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center has been named one of America’s top-performing hospitals by the 2021 Fortune/IBM Watson Health 100 Top Hospitals list.
University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center has been named one of America’s top-performing hospitals by the 2021 Fortune/IBM Watson Health 100 Top Hospitals list.
UH Geauga has been recognized on the 100 Top Hospitals list for four years, and was commended for high scores in clinical outcomes, operational efficiency and patient experience, of which they ranked in the top percentage (80-100%) within their peer group.
Additional measurements included financial health and a new “community health” category, with the goal of identifying how hospitals improve their surrounding footprint.
Performance indicators include survival rates, patient complications, health care-associated infections, 30-day mortality and 30-day hospital-wide readmission rates, length of stay, throughput in emergency rooms, inpatient expenses, profitability and ratings from patients.
“I am incredibly proud of our UH Geauga team for this well-deserved recognition,” said UH Geauga President Dr. Donald DeCarlo, who also serves as associate system chief medical officer for the UH East Region.
“Our team has shown the importance of keeping our patients healthy and happy while they’re in our care, but we also realize there is much more to the success of a community hospital than caring for those inside our walls,” DeCarlo added. “Our team proactively reaches out and travels to our surrounding communities, such as our elderly and Amish populations, and partners with local organizations to provide preventive care through educational events, health screenings and other programs.”
The aim of the Top 100 Hospitals list is to recognize steady performance and notable successes of a variety of health care systems, as well as cut through “prestige bias,” according to an April 28 news release.
Importantly, hospitals do not apply for these awards; instead, IBM Watson Health researchers evaluated 2,675 short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals on the various performance indicators in four main categories: clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, patient experience and financial health, according to the fortune.com website.
This year, a fifth category was added: “community health,” which measures how hospitals engaged with the goal of improving the wellbeing of the entire community outside their walls.
Research was conducted utilizing a variety of public data sets, including core measures and patient satisfaction data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare website, Medicare cost reports and Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) data. Each hospital is then defined within a class based on their bed size and teaching status.
To learn more about the awards and methodology specifics for the rankings, visit: https://fortune.com/2021/04/27/100-top-hospitals-2021-ibm-watson-health/
