University of Utah Health has been once again named a winner of the prestigious 2018 Vizient Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Award.
The award recognizes academic medical centers for demonstrating superior quality and safety performance as measured by the Vizient Quality and Accountability Study, which has been conducted annually since 2005. The award was presented on Thursday, Oct. 4 at the 2018 Vizient Fall Connections Summit held in Las Vegas.
This year, hundreds of academic medical centers and community hospitals were included in the study, which measures superior performance based on the Institute of Medicine’s six domains of care: safety, timeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity and patient-centeredness.
“Thanks to the expertise, hard work, compassion and dedication of our University of Utah Health faculty and staff, residents in the Mountain West have access to some of the highest-quality care in the entire nation,” said Michael L. Good, M.D., CEO of University of Utah Health. “And, these efforts ensure future citizens will have access to the even higher levels of care—as our students train in a top-tier health system, not just in Utah, but among the premier academic health science centers across the United States of America”
“Our inclusion in Vizient’s top ten rankings is further proof of the excellent work being done by our healthcare team for the people of the Mountain West,” said Gordon Crabtree, CEO of University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics. “It is also a perfect compliment to our selection as the top hospital in Utah by U.S. News & World Report and our recognition from Forbes as one of America’s BEST Large Employers.”
The 2018 Vizient Quality and Accountability Study Rankings place U of U Health in the company of the nation’s top academic medical centers:
- Mayo Clinic–Rochester
- Rush University Medical Center
- NYU Langone Medical Center
- University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
- The University of Kansas Health System
- University of Pennsylvania Health System
- University of Utah Health
- Houston Methodist Hospital
- Memorial Hermann–Texas Medical Center
- Tufts Medical Center
In addition to the placement on the top 10 list, U of U Health was also ranked fifth in the Ambulatory Care Quality and Accountability Awards from Vizient. This is the fourth year in a row the U has been ranked in the top 10.
This award recognizes excellence in delivering high-quality outpatient care in five ways: access to care, capacity management and throughput, quality and efficiency, continuum of care and equity. Those recognized as top performers are seen as having adopted world-class practices and solutions to optimize the patient experience.
“What is most important at U of U Health is what these rankings mean for our patients,” said Good. “Better care, better access, better communication with patients and their families, better survival, shorter stays and fewer complications. This is what quality care is all about. ”
Vizient, Inc. is the largest member-driven health care performance company in the U.S. In previous years, the Vizient Excellence Awards were known as the University HealthSystem Consortium Awards.
The composite scoring system uses patient-level performance data from a variety of sources, including the Vizient Clinical Data Base, the Vizient Core Measures Data Base, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network.