Thomson Healthcare Study Finds That Hospitals Delivering High-Quality Heart Care Are Efficient and Cost Effe...(Is. An important shift was identifie...),Health

"An important shift was identified in where CABG patients are being treated, and this shift in patient volume may be the initial indicator that transparency is having an impact," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs, Center for Healthcare Improvement, Thomson Healthcare. "The gap in CABG volume between the 100 Top Hospitals and the peers grew from 104 percent in 2005 to 122 percent in 2006 in the Community Hospital category."

The list of winning hospitals is published in the Nov. 19 issue of Modern Healthcare magazine.

The study analyzed acute-care hospitals nationwide using detailed empirical performance data from publicly available 2005 and 2006 Medicare MedPAR data and 2006 Medicare cost reports. Thomson Healthcare researchers scored hospitals in eight key performance areas: risk-adjusted medical mortality, risk-adjusted surgical mortality, risk-adjusted complications, core measures score, percentage of CABG patients with internal mammary artery use, procedure volume, severity-adjusted average length of stay, and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost.

The measures were calculated for three classes of hospitals with the following number of winners in each:

-- Teaching hospitals with cardiovascular residency programs, 30 winners.

-- Teaching hospitals without cardiovascular residency programs, 40

winners.

-- Community hospitals, 30 winners.

About Thomson Healthcare

Thomson Healthcare is the leading provider of decision support solutions that help organizations across the healthcare industry improve clinical and business performance. Thomson Healthcare products and services help clinicians, hospitals, employers, health plans, government agencies, and pharmaceutical companies manage the cost and improve the quality of healthcare.

Thomson Healthcare is a part of The Thomson Corporation, a provider of value-added information, soft
'/>"/>