SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics has been named the top academic medical center in the country based on measures of quality, patient safety, mortality rates, readmission rates and patient satisfaction.
It scored in the top 15 nationally on every one of the measures, officials said Tuesday.
UHC's No. 1 overall ranking by the University HealthSystem Consortium's 2010 Quality and Accountability Study is a "very big deal," said chief executive officer David Entwistle. He said it's one thing to think "we're very quality driven" and another to be top-ranked among such heavy hitters as the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Brigham and Women's Hospital and others when hard data and real-time assessments are used.
Entwistle, internal medicine specialist Dr. Thomas Miller and Carol Hadlock, director of quality and patient-safety programs, briefed reporters on the honor Tuesday.
They said it's a victory of design, not happenstance.
Miller said UHC "made a conscious effort from the top of the organization down … that we would use this scorecard as a way to improve quality." Hadlock said they changed the entire "mission to revolve around the patient." It has been part of an effort aimed at patient satisfaction and overall quality improvement.
In 2008, the U. healthcare system, which is the only academic health center in the state, was No. 50 out of 88. In 2009, it had moved up to 31 out of 93. The top spot this year came from among 98 academic medical centers. And it's a real-time ranking, said Hadlock, not a look back at previous years. It's also based on hard data, not or perception or reputation for how good the care provided is.
The staff tackled specific care issues and concerns using best practice, evidence-based approaches. They also cleaned up coding that didn't accurately reflect the quality of patient care. For instance, when they reported patients who died as a result of the care they received vs. those who would have died no matter what, such as those patients who had terminal illnesses and were transferred to the U. medical center for palliative care, the mortality numbers improved. The category is supposed to reflect people who die as a result of care mistakes or whose death might have been prevented.
When they decided to reduce the number of vaginal tears during labor and delivery, they searched the medical literature for best practices, refined their clinical protocols and were rewarded with consistent improvement. When they targeted reducing the number of pressure ulcers, they studied products, the beds and their own practices, among other issues. Where three years ago 33 patients had bedsores, last year they had only two and the goal is zero, Hadlock said.
She believes patients from several years ago and patients from today would have different experiences at the hospital as a result of improvements. Although it's not part of the study, even the physical hospital has changed. Each patient room is now private, for instance.
The top five centers in the study were awarded a Quality Leadership Award. Besides the U., top-rated academic centers were University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz.; Methodist Hospital of Indiana; Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pa.; and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
The U. health care system includes the medical school, hospital, clinics, U. Orthopedic Hospital, Moran Eye Center and all their staffs. They were all part of the ongoing collaboration to improve care, Miller said.
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