Green Bay, Two Rivers Aurora hospitals honored

Two Northeast Wisconsin Aurora Health Care facilities are among top U.S. hospitals identified by Thomson Reuters as having demonstrated the fastest, most consistent improvement over five consecutive years.

Aurora BayCare Medical Center of Green Bay was ranked in the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals: Performance Improvement Leaders in the medium community hospital category, while Aurora Medical Center in Two Rivers was listed under small community hospitals. Aurora West Allis Medical Center also was listed in the medium community hospital category.

“It’s an honor to have our Aurora facilities recognized by Thomson Reuters as top performers,” said Patrick Falvey, Ph.D., Aurora senior vice president and chief integration officer. “Providing the best outcomes for our patients remains a top priority that continues to receive national attention but this designation specifically recognizes the pace at which we have improved. The caregivers at these three medical centers reflect our culture of rapid adoption and quality improvement.”

Thomson Reuters reports that overall, U.S. hospitals struggled to improve their performance from 2002 to 2006, the period covered by the study, but the winning hospitals illustrate that rapid, across-the-board improvement is attainable.

The study — Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals: Performance Improvement Leaders — examined the performance of more than 2,800 U.S. hospitals on a variety of clinical, financial, operational and patient safety criteria to identify the 100 winners.

The hospital assessment project, which dates back to 1993, was formerly called the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals program.

“We are continuously working to achieve the best quality measures and rapidly adopting new technologies for the benefit of our patients,” said Paul Summerside, M.D., chairman of the board of directors for Aurora BayCare Medical Center. “We are honored to receive this recognition.”

“Being recognized for this achievement further solidifies our dedication to improving the care that we provide to the community,” said Steve Long, chief administrative officer of Aurora Medical Center in Two Rivers.

“This study identifies superior leadership, based on the success of hospital executive teams’ long-term strategies for strengthening performance,” said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs at Thomson Reuters. “These are true ‘Good to Great’ leadership teams that have focused on improving quality, efficiency, use of evidence-based medicine, and financial stability in order to better serve their patients and communities.”

The study rated hospitals on eight factors — patient mortality, medical complications, patient safety, length of stay, expenses, profitability, cash-to-debt ratio, and use of evidence-based medicine. Researchers evaluated 2,867 short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals in five categories: major teaching hospitals, other teaching hospitals, large community hospitals, medium-sized community hospitals and small community hospitals.

The study analyzed publicly available Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review data, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Compare data set.

In March, Aurora West Allis Medical Center and Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center were on Thomson’s list of the nation's 100 top hospitals in clinical outcomes, patient safety, financial performance and efficiency. Aurora West Allis was one of only 16 sites to be on both the 100 Top Hospitals and Performance Improvement Leaders lists.

For more information on the lists, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.