SMCS Named a Top 100 Hospital in the U.S., Further Validating Surgical Hospitalist Program Results
>Recently, for the fifth time, Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento (SMCS) was named one of the Top 100 Hospitals in the U.S. by Truven Analytics. It was recognized, along with the other hospitals selected, for consistently delivering outstanding quality of care, satisfaction and community value at a reasonable cost.
For the first time, SMCS also earned the Top 100 Hospitals Everest® Award—one of only 17 hospitals in the nation and the only hospital in California to simultaneously set the national benchmark for both “balanced excellence in a single year” and “greatest improvement over five consecutive years.”
Truven selected the hospitals based upon an independent analysis of public data. The criteria used included both financial benchmarks (hospital profitability, as well as Medicare per beneficiary spending) and clinical measures; for example, 30-day readmission and mortality rates metrics.
Surgical Affiliates Management Group’s surgicalist program was one component that helped SMCS achieve this major recognition. Our collaborative surgical hospitalist program boosted performance throughout the hospital, improved patient care and reduced costs, as documented in a five-year study undertaken by SMCS and Surgical Affiliates, which was published in the prestigious peer-reviewed Journal of the American College of Surgeons. The study validated that surgical hospitalist programs improve key hospital performance metrics. For SMCS this included:
- Decreasing length of stay by 12%
- Reducing complications by 43%
- Lowering costs by 31%—a total of $2 million in a single year
According to Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president at Truven Health Analytics, if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those treated in the award-winning facilities:
- More than 164,000 additional lives could be saved.
- Approximately 82,000 additional patients could be complication free.
- More than $6 billion could be saved.
- The average patient stay would decrease by nearly half a day.
- And if the same standards were applied to all inpatients, the impact would be even greater.
We’re delighted that Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento has once again been honored as one of the nation’s top hospitals. If you are interested in learning more about how our partnership with SMCS helped accomplish these results, please read our most recent case study “The Verdict Is In: Surgical Hospitalist Programs Deliver Improved Results throughout the Hospital.” To request a copy, please visit www.samgi.com
