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BWH is one of only two academic medical centers in the country to be recognized as a top performing hospital for three straight years in the University HealthSystem Consortium’s annual Quality and Accountability Study. BWH gained a five-star rating from the UHC and the consortium’s prestigious crystal award.
“This award from our peers at the UHC is testament to the dedication of our people to exceptional patient care,” said BWH President Gary Gottlieb, MD, MBA. “It honors all members of our community who constantly strive for excellence in health care.”
The UHC is a national consortium of academic medical centers, and this year its Quality and Accountability Study examined 83 member institutions for safety, effectiveness, equity, efficiency and patient centeredness through the UHC’s databases. For the third year in a row, BWH ranked in the top five.
The Institute of Medicine’s six domains of care continue to be used as a guide in structuring the performance categories for the UHC study. The focus centers on the outcomes of care to identify associated characteristics of high-performing academic medical centers. Critical success factors first identified in the 2005 study include: a shared sense of purpose throughout the organization; leadership style; an accountability system; a focus on results; and a collaborative culture.
BWH ranked first in two of six study domains: patient centeredness and equity. BWH received a composite score of 75, well above the median score of 62.5, in patient centeredness, which UHC measured through patient satisfaction data collected through Medicare’s consumer surveys. BWH received a perfect score of 100 in equity, the section in which UHC looks for statistically significant differences among gender, race and socioeconomic demographics.
Michael Gustafson, MD, MBA, vice president of the Center for Clinical Excellence, said that UHC’s analysis is considered far more stringent and comprehensive than more widely reported rankings. “UHC relies 100 percent on patient-level process and outcome measures,” said Gustafson, who accepted the award on behalf of BWH.