New data from Truven Health Analytics show that many top-performing hospitals are saving money for the Medicare program. According to an exclusive study Truven conducted for Modern Healthcare, data show the best performers in Truven's 100 Top Hospitals study do better in reducing Medicare spending for inpatient admissions and post-discharge, resulting in higher overall quality scores and greater patient satisfaction.
Truven's top-performing hospitals also regularly outpace their peers across a variety of clinical, financial and performance metrics, including achieving fewer patient complications, fewer readmissions and lower costs per discharge.
Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president of performance improvement and the 100 Top Hospitals program at the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based data and analytics firm, said she's not surprised that the top performers achieve lower Medicare spending.
“High-performing hospitals on a nationally balanced scorecard actually have high balanced performance across the organization, which has an impact on reducing Medicare spending,” she said. “The outcome of fewer readmissions and lower costs overall reflect the changes that have happened with the continuum of care. And that's a proxy for refocusing on greater patient-centered care.”
Medicare spending per beneficiary, or MSPB, has been included as a test metric for the past year in Truven's methodology for determining the hospitals that qualify for the annual 100 Top Hospitals list. It was added this year as a part of Truven's key performance measures—including 30-day mortality rates, 30-day readmission rates and severity-adjusted average length of stay—for identifying the 100 Top Hospitals. MSPB is based on the most recent information from the CMS' Hospital Compare database and is risk-adjusted.