IBM Watson Health released its 15 Top Health Systems annual study April 22, which highlights the top-performing health systems in the U.S. based on their overall organizational performance.
Formerly known as the Truven Health Analytics 15 Top Health Systems, the report establishes a quantitative measure of its member health systems' clinical and operational performance across each of their hospitals. This year's report evaluated 338 health systems and 2,422 health system member hospitals across nine clinical and operational performance benchmarks. All research was based on publicly available data sets.
The key performance metrics that showed the most significant outperformance compared to nonwinning peer group health systems include:
- Fewer in-hospital deaths (14.6 percent)
- Fewer complications and infections (17.3 percent and 16.2 percent, respectively)
- Shorter length of stay (0.4 days shorter)
- Shorter emergency department wait times (40 minutes shorter per patient)
- Lower spend (5.6 percent lower costs per episode, which includes combined in-hospital and post-discharge costs)
- Higher patient satisfaction, as measured by HCAHPS (2.3 percent higher)
Here are IBM Watson Health's top 15 health systems.
Large Health Systems
1. Mayo Foundation (Rochester, Minn.)
2. Mercy (Chesterfield, Mo.)
3. Sentara Healthcare (Norfolk, Va.)
4. St. Luke's Health System (Boise, Idaho)
5. UCHealth (Aurora, Colo.)
Medium Health Systems
1. Aspirus Network (Wausau, Wis.)
2. HealthPartners (Bloomington, Minn.)
3. Mercy Health-Cincinnati
4. Mission Health (Asheville, N.C.)
5. TriHealth (Cincinnati)
Small Health Systems
1. Asante (Medford, Ore.)
2. CHI St. Joseph Health (Bryan, Texas)
3. Maury Regional Health (Columbia, Tenn.)
4. Roper St. Francis Healthcare (Charleston, S.C.)
5. UPMC Susquehanna Health System (Williamsport, Penn.)