Aurora Health Care ranked among top 20% of top U.S. health systems

Aurora Health Care has been named among the top health systems in the U.S. by Thomson Reuters. Announced recently in Modern Healthcare, Aurora ranked in the top 20 percent of the list, which was based on clinical performance.

The honorees were recognized for their performance in eight clinical quality and efficiency categories:

• Mortality
• Medical complications
• Patient safety
• Average length of stay
• 30-day mortality
• Readmission rates
• Use of evidence-based practices
• Patient survey data

According to the study, the top-performing systems appear to care for sicker and poorer patients. Despite the sicker patient load, the top systems have fewer mortalities, complications and adverse patient safety events. They are more efficient, releasing patients nearly a day sooner than the lowest performers.

The study also found that midwestern health systems dominate the nation in performance. A total of 55 percent of the systems in the top quintile were located in the Midwest.

To compile this year's list of top health systems, Thomson Reuters evaluated 255 systems with a total of 1,903 hospitals. This included all U.S. health systems with two or more short-term, general, nonfederal hospitals and a minimum of 25 beds each. The researchers evaluated information from two public data sources, the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare.