Health Headlines
Truven Health Names BIDMC a Top Hospital for 11th Time
For the seventh time in eight years, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has been named one of the 100 Top Hospitals in the United States based in overall organizational performance, and is the only Boston hospital cited in the annual study released by Truven Health Analytics.
The Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals® study (formerly known as Thomson Reuters) evaluates performance in 10 areas:
- Mortality
- Medical complications
- Patient safety
- Average patient stay
- Expenses
- Profitability
- Patient satisfaction
- Adherence to clinical standards of care
- Post-discharge mortality and readmission rates for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia patients
The study has been conducted annually since 1993. This is BIDMC’s 11th time making the list.
“We are honored to be the only Boston teaching hospital to be recognized by this hospital rating methodology, which utilizes multiple metrics of hospital performance," says Kenneth Sands, MD, Senior Vice President of Health Care Quality at BIDMC. "It is another reflection of the commitment we have made to safe, high quality care."
“The winners of the 100 Top Hospitals award have driven the national benchmarks higher every year for 20 years,” says Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president at Truven Health Analytics. “The key to success in a tumultuous environment is visionary leadership that develops and maintains a hospital-wide culture of excellence that cuts across everything, from patient care to housekeeping to administration.”
To conduct the 100 Top Hospitals study, Truven Health researchers evaluated 2,922 short-term, acute-care, non-federal hospitals. They used public information — Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data, and core measures and patient satisfaction data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare website.
Hospitals do not apply, and winners do not pay to market this honor. Other Massachusetts hospitals recognized in the survey are Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester.
Based on the results of this year’s study, 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
- Nearly 82,000 additional patients could be complication free
- $6 billion could be saved
- The average patient stay would decrease by half a day.
Learn more at 100TopHospitals.com »
BIDMC CEO Appears on NECN
Kevin Tabb, MD, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was a recent guest on NECN’s “CEO Corner.”
Dr. Tabb spoke about the challenges facing BIDMC and plans the medical center has for the future, including expanding outside the city of Boston, as well as his own background and the path he took to BIDMC.
Watch the Videos
Dr. Tabb on BIDMC's plans to expand outside the city
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Dr. Tabb on how hospitals are doing more with less
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Dr. Tabb on his career path and how he got to BIDMC
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BIDMC Partners with CDC to Raise Awareness of Colon Cancer
Augustin Umul is sitting up in his hospital bed, waiting for his first ever colonoscopy in the Digestive Disease Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. It’s a scene that feels a little foreign to him because, as he says, “I’ve never had any problems that brought me into the hospital.”
He’s been healthy and has no family history of colon cancer. Still, he’s a little nervous, because at 57 years old, he knows this test is overdue.
“My doctors have been telling me that I need to have a colonoscopy because it can prevent cancer, and so I finally agreed to do it for my own health,” says Umul, a native of Guatemala who now lives in Waltham.
Umul is hardly alone. Colorectal cancer is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer and the third leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the United States. It’s recommended that colon screenings begin at age 50, but only about half of those who should get screened actually do.
What’s more, according to the American Cancer Society, Hispanics have lower overall cancer screening rates than non-Hispanic whites, and are diagnosed with cancer at later stages, when treatment options are more limited and less successful.
Gastroenterologist Mandeep Sawhney, MD, comes into Umul’s room to talk him through the procedure.
“The test looks at the entire colon. If we see any polyps, we’ll remove them,” Sawhney tells Umul. “We know that not all polyps are cancerous, but cancer comes from polyps, so by removing them we lower your risk of getting cancer.”
Umul is one of five patients from Allston-Brighton’s Joseph M. Smith Community Health Center who received free colonoscopies at BIDMC on National Colorectal Cancer Awareness and Screening Day. The event is sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the American Gastroenterological Association, and is conducted annually by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with the singular purpose of improving screening rates.
“We want all our patients to know that by getting a colonoscopy regularly, they can reduce their chances of getting colon cancer by up to 90 percent,” says Sawhney. “There are very few other instances in medicine where we can have such a profound effect.”
Umul’s test doesn’t reveal anything worrisome. He’s given instructions for when he’ll need his next screening and he’s ready to go home.
“I have three or four friends around my same age who haven’t had the test,” says Umul. “But maybe now they will. I can talk with them about how necessary it is, and hopefully they’ll do it too.”
In addition to Sawhney, BIDMC gastroenterologists Alphonso Brown, MD, and Gary Trey, MD, also participated in the annual Screening Day event. Now in its fifth year, the screenings are being held in 23 states nationwide, including Massachusetts.
Learn more at cdc.gov/cancer/crccp »
Above content provided by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. For advice about your medical care, consult your doctor.
Posted March 2013