October 24, 2006

University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers recognized as Top Performer in the 2006 UHC Quality and Accountability Ranking

Oak Brook, Ill — For the second year, the University HealthSystem Consortium recognized five of its members who have demonstrated excellence in delivering high-quality, safe, effective and equitable care to their patients. The University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers share this ranking with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Mayo Clinic and the Ohio State University Medical Center.

Doug Strong accepts award for UMHHC

The five top performers emerged following the rigorous application of a scoring methodology that considered performance measures in safety, mortality, effectiveness and equity. The methodology was applied to data submitted in 2005 from 81 full UHC members who participate in UHC’s Clinical, Core Measures and Operational databases.

All 81 members reviewed received a confidential scorecard of their rankings. The scorecard is an update to the landmark 2005 Quality and Accountability Project that successfully used key measures of organizational performance and that focused on outcomes of care to study the characteristics of high-performing academic medical centers.

“Our objective in 2005, and going forward, was to determine what structures and practices are associated with excellent performance across an academic medical center. We followed the Institute of Medicine’s domains of care to structure our performance categories." said Julie Cerese, MSN, senior director of UHC’s Clinical Process Improvement and one of the study’s leaders.

Critical success factors that were identified in the 2005 study included a shared sense of purpose, passionate and purposeful leadership, vertical and horizontal accountability systems, a focus on results, and a culture of collaboration.

“Our members face unprecedented demands to demonstrate how they provide high-quality, safe and effective care. We believe this scorecard assists academic medical center leaders to know where they stand when compared against peer organizations and, in the case of all the five members named, to know where they have demonstrated a high level of quality in important dimensions of patient care,” Cerese added.

UHC is an alliance of 95 academic medical centers and 139 of their affiliated hospitals, representing nearly 90 percent of the nation’s non-profit academic medical centers. UHC offers its members specific programs and services to improve clinical, operational, and patient safety performance. Visit “About UHC” at www.uhc.edu for more information.

Written by Linda Bosy
312-307-7623
bosy@uhc.edu

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