BWH Named Among Nation's Top AMCs in Care Quality, Patient Safety
Brigham and Women's Hospital earned a five-star rating and scored among the top three academic medical centers in an intense evaluation of performance in clinical quality and safety by the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC).
"At BWH, a number of factors promote high quality and safe patient care, including a quality-focused CEO, strong leadership from clinical chairs, an engaged and supported staff, an emphasis on measurable results, an atmosphere of collegiality, a commitment to innovation and technology and a culture of openness," the UHC report concluded.
UHC is an alliance of many of the nation's top academic medical centers (AMC) and serves as a resource and information-sharing vehicle aimed at clinical, operational and financial improvements. Its 2005 Quality and Accountability Project scrutinized 90 member hospitals to determine why some hospitals are top performers. In this project, BWH ranked first in clinical effectiveness, a ranking based on patient outcome data from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and select post-surgical readmission rates. BWH also ranked first in financial measures.
"This is a tremendous outside recognition of our commitment to excellent patient care," BWH President and CEO Gary Gottlieb said. "Every day I see resolute dedication to quality care and patient safety in everyone from department chairs to unit coordinators, and this UHC analysis validates what we all know to be true - this is a special place."
The UHC methodology and scrutiny of AMCs was based on patient outcome data from 2003 and 2004. The report measured safety, mortality and effectiveness by examining several indicators collected by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and JCAHO. UHC also analyzed equity issues by reviewing racial, gender and socioeconomic disparities.
After gathering and analyzing the data and ranking hospitals, project leaders sent teams on blind visits to the top scorers like BWH and three mid-level scorers. The site visit teams were unaware of whether they were visiting a top or mid-level scoring hospital. The top scoring medical centers demonstrated several underlying themes that make them successful. For example, BWH leadership and employees clearly exhibit a "shared sense of purpose" dedicated to patient care, and its leaders expressed a desire to improve.
"The UHC noticed and commended us for our continuous and collective desire to improve the care that we provide," Gottlieb said.
In a 14-page case study, the site visit team praised BWH's leadership structure. Also, UHC praised the Center for Clinical Excellence for its centralized role in leading patient care improvement, patient safety programs and data collection, and equally highlighted care improvement and safety efforts ongoing in various departments and care units. And nurses and physicians alike share a sense of pride, values and responsibility, according to the report.
The analysis is considered far more stringent and comprehensive than more widely reported rankings such as the U.S. News and World Report annual "Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals." UHC relied 100 percent on patient-level process and outcomes measures and ignores reputation as determined from physician surveys.