Salt Lake City- For the fourth year in a row, the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) has awarded University of Utah Health Care (UUHC) with its prestigious Quality Leadership Award. The ranking marks the performance of the nation's top academic medical centers in quality and accountability. UUHC was also awarded a Supply Chain Performance Excellence award, a mark of excellence in supply chain management.
"For the past five years, UUHC has relentlessly pursued exceptional value for patients. We define value as better outcomes, better service, and managed costs for both our patients and the system as a whole," says Robert Pendleton, M.D., chief medical quality officer.
Pendleton attributes this success to UUHC's staff and physicians. "These people have embraced the meaningful use of data, a culture of transparency, and an eagerness to learn and apply improvement science (Lean methodology) to help us be successful," he says. "We are not working toward improving this one scorecard from the UHC—we're developing a culture of innovation and continually striving to be better; a culture where collaboration across roles and departments drives our overall success."
UHC is an alliance of 118 academic medical centers and their associated hospitals, working to create knowledge, foster collaboration, and promote innovation. The Quality and Accountability study is made up of six ratings:
Mortality: System aggregate plus composite of eight major service lines
Effectiveness: Re-admission rates plus performance on several key national quality measures
Safety: Selected patient indicators
Equity: Differences in patient outcomes based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status
Patient Centeredness: 10 patient service (HCAHPS) questions
Efficiency: Compares hospitals based on observed direct costs and length of stay vs. expected length of stay
This year, 101 UHC member institutions were included in the analysis, which relied on data from the UHC Clinical Data Base/Resource Manager™, the UHC Core Measures Data Base, and the publicly reported Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems.
UUHC ranked in the top 10 for the fourth year in a row, placing among the nation's leading academic medical centers that share a similar mix of complex and difficult health care scenarios.
The Supply Chain Performance award is recognition of excellence in successful supply chain performance improvement programs. Supply utilization overall; supply utilization in cardiology, surgical services, and inpatient medications; and operating margin were used to evaluate performance. The award winners excelled in five areas: physician alignment and stewardship, evidence-based evaluations, innovative supply chain approaches, focus on distribution and utilization processes, and long-term commitment to continuous improvement.