SAN ANTONIO—Five top-performing hospitals have been nationally recognized for reducing harm, mortality, readmissions and costs, while improving the patient experience and delivering evidence-based care. They include:

Catawba Valley Medical Center of Hickory, N.C.

Memorial Hospital Miramar of Miramar, Fla.

St. Clare Hospital of Baraboo, Wis.

Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital of Azle, Texas (for the second year in a row) 

University Hospitals Geneva Medical Center of Geneva, Ohio

These organizations are the only hospitals to receive the Premier healthcare alliance’s QUEST® Award for High-value Healthcare. The award honors hospitals for achieving top performance in all six of the areas measured in the QUEST collaborative. Specifically, they’re being recognized for:

Reducing mortality by at least 31 percent

Reducing the average cost of care to less than $5,690 per discharge

Reliably delivering all evidence-based care measures to patients in the areas of heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care at least 95 percent of the time

Improving the hospital experience so that patients favorably rate their stay and would recommend the facility to others at least 73 percent of the time

Reducing preventable harm events

Reducing readmissions by at least 12 percent

QUEST is a performance improvement collaborative of 333 hospitals working to make healthcare safer, more efficient and consistently effective. Approximately 330 QUEST members participating from October 1, 2011 through September 2012 were eligible for the QUEST Award for High-value Healthcare.

In addition, 16 finalists were also recognized for achieving top performance in any five of the six above areas. And, 38 QUEST members received a “Citation of Merit” for achieving top performance in any four of the six areas.

“Meeting the imperatives of better care at a lower cost isn’t easy for health systems to achieve on their own. It’s this type of collaboration and innovation that’s needed system-wide to build a sustainable future for healthcare and most importantly communities nationwide,” said Susan DeVore, Premier president and CEO. “Premier congratulates all of these hospitals for their outstanding performance.”

The hospitals received the awards during a ceremony held June 12 at Premier’s annual Breakthroughs Conference and Exhibition in San Antonio.

About the Premier healthcare alliance 

Premier is the nation’s largest performance improvement alliance of more than 2,800 U.S. hospitals and 95,000 other sites using the power of collaboration and technology to lead the transformation to coordinated, high-quality, cost-effective care. Owned by healthcare providers, Premier operates a leading purchasing network with more than $5 billion in annual savings. Premier also maintains clinical, financial and outcomes databases based on 1 in every 4 patient discharges. A world leader in measurably improving patient care, Premier has the largest performance improvement collaboratives in America, including one in partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. https://www.premierinc.com. Stay connected with Premier on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.