Geisinger Medical Center named to 100 Top Hospitals list

March 6, 2006, DANVILLE - Geisinger Medical Center has been named to the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals®: National Benchmarks for Success list, which annually examines changing performance levels in US hospitals across five critical performance areas: outcomes of care, patient safety, efficiency, financial performance and growing community service.

The study also includes two new findings concerning the impact of higher patient safety on patients' risk of dying and differences in patient focus in the emergency department (ED).

“Geisinger Medical Center is the only academic medical center in Pennsylvania that was named to Solucient’s list,” said Executive Vice President for Clinical Operations Louis Shapiro. “The 100 Top Hospitals designation acknowledges Geisinger’s clinical excellence and patient safety achievements.  We are honored to be listed along with such prestigious organizations as Mayo Clinic, Beth Israel Deaconess and the University of Chicago Medical Center,” he said.
 
"The 100 Top Hospital award winners continue to demonstrate significant distinctions in provision of value to their communities, as shown by objective differences in clinical outcomes, patient safety, efficient operations and financial stability," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president of Solucient's Center for Healthcare Improvement, which is responsible for the 100 Top Hospitals program.

"This latest analysis also confirmed previous work indicating that 100 Top Hospitals have better patient safety," said David Foster, PhD, MPH, chief scientist at Solucient. "Hospitals that won a 100 Top Hospitals award in the 2005 national study had risk-adjusted PSI rates that were significantly lower than non-winners for nine of the 11 PSIs studied, while rates for the remaining PSIs were not significantly different between winners and non-winners."

“The Top 100 recognition is one measure of our team’s efforts on behalf of our patients, said Chief Nursing Officer Susan Hallick, RN. “Geisinger nurses, physicians, resident, fellows, support staff and hundreds of others are committed to excellence,” she said.

“We understand our role in the lives of the residents of this region,” said Chief Medical Officer Joseph Bisordi, MD.  “Our specialized services, including our new liver transplant program and robotics surgery, are key to the health and well-being of the community,“ he said.

The 13th edition of the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study uses a balanced scorecard approach and scores hospitals according to nine key organization-wide measures: risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, patient safety, growth in patient volume, severity-adjusted average length of stay, expense per adjusted discharge, profit from operations, cash to debt ratio and tangible assets per discharge.

This achievement by Geisinger Medical Center marks the fourth time that a Geisinger Health System hospital has been recognized by Solucient as among the country’s top hospitals. Geisinger Wyoming Valley in Wilkes-Barre previously earned this honor for medium community hospitals, 100 to 240 beds.

Geisinger Health System is an integrated physician-led health services organization serving more than two million residents throughout central and northeastern Pennsylvania, and one of the largest rural healthcare providers in the United States. It includes a 650-member group practice, tertiary/quaternary medical centers, one of the nation’s first rural children’s hospitals, acute-care community hospitals, adult and pediatric trauma centers, an alcohol and chemical dependency treatment center, two research centers, 40 community practice offices, and one of the largest not-for-profit rural HMOs in the country.

Celebrating its 91st year, Geisinger Medical Center is a 410-bed teaching, referral and research hospital, Level I trauma center with additional qualifications in pediatrics, and one of the largest hospitals in the region. It is also home to the Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, a comprehensive provider of pediatric care. The hospital’s medical staff represents more than 75 specialties and includes about 350 physicians, who have distinguished themselves nationally and internationally as clinicians, teachers, researchers and leaders in the healthcare industry.

According to this year’s Solucient study, benchmark hospitals had a higher percentage of sicker patients requiring more complex treatment, yet had better patient outcomes and lower costs.

The study stated that if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those being cared for at Geisinger Medical Center and the nation’s top hospitals, as many as 106,312 more Medicare patients could survive. An additional 117,000 patient stays could be complication-free each year — at an estimated annual savings of $7.6 billion.

More information on the study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com.

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