IBM Watson Health™ has released its 15 Top Health Systems™ annual study. Those selected from a pool of 337 health systems and 2,961 health system member hospitals have been identified as a top-performing health system based on overall organizational performance. Now in its 11th year, the study is part of the Watson Health 100 Top Hospitals® program, which the company says leverages advanced data, science and analytics capabilities to calculate hospital and health system performance benchmarks.
IBM Watson Health said if all Medicare inpatients were similarly situated and received the same level of care as those in the top 15, providers could save 60,000 more lives, avoid 26,000 more patient complications, reduce HAIs by 10 percent, and reduce patient time spent in the ER by 38 minutes.
The 15 Top Health Systems study, which uses publicly available data for clinical, operational and patient satisfaction metrics, said the best U.S. health systems have better risk-adjusted outcomes and higher patient satisfaction scores. At the same time, they’re able to maintain a lower average cost per patient than other health systems evaluated in the study.
Health system performance is evaluated across the following performance benchmarks:
· risk-adjusted inpatient mortality index
· risk-adjusted complications index
· mean healthcare-associated infection index
· mean 30-day risk-adjusted mortality rate
· mean 30-day risk-adjusted readmission rate
· severity-adjusted length of stay
· mean emergency department throughput
· Medicare spend per beneficiary index
· HCAHPS score
"The multi-year trend toward increased healthcare consolidation has shined a spotlight on health system performance, illuminating both the challenges of coordinating care across multiple facilities and the opportunities that can come with scale," said Ekta Punwani, 100 Top Hospitals® program leader at IBM Watson Health. "The institutions recognized in the IBM Watson Health 15 Top Health Systems study are providing a blueprint for how to improve quality, lower costs and achieve outstanding patient satisfaction on a consistent basis."
Kyu Rhee, M.D., M.P.P., vice president and chief health officer at IBM Watson Health said hospital consolidations – while beneficial in some respects – also creates challenges that these new systems must face, particularly the task of integrating disparate data sets, acquiring actionable insights and providing quality care to a much larger patient population.
The following key performance measurements were used to pick the 15 Top Health Systems:
· Fewer Deaths: Overall, 13.8 percent fewer in-hospital deaths.
· Fewer Complications and Infections: Patients experienced 12.6 percent fewer complications and 9.8 percent fewer healthcare-associated infections.
· Shorter Length of Stay: A median severity-adjusted length of stay that was one half-day shorter (0.5) than peers.
· Shorter Emergency Department Wait Times: Overall, median emergency department wait times that were 38 minutes shorter per patient.
· Lower Spend: Combined in-hospital and post-discharge costs were 1.1 percent lower per episode.
· Higher Patient Satisfaction: Overall hospital experience, as measured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), was rated 2.5 percent higher for leading health systems.
This year, IBM Watson Health said it has started testing a series of new measures that update the basic standards of inpatient care, including outpatient imaging efficiency for breast and chest scans, process of care for severe sepsis and septic shock, 30-day all-cause, hospital-wide readmissions, 30- and 90-day episode of care payment measures, excess days in acute care measures and 90-day complication measures.
