It’s official…again! For the third year in a row, Lawrence Memorial Hospital has earned its place among the nation’s top 100 hospitals. As a recipient of the 2015 Truven Health Analytics 100 Top Hospitals award, we are proud to say we rank so highly among nearly 3,000 acute care hospitals nationwide. We are in the national top 20 for organizations our size, and we are the only hospital in Kansas to achieve this distinction for the past three consecutive years.

In an industry changing as rapidly as health care, according to Truven Health Analytics, the 100 Top Hospitals illustrate how effective leaders manage change and achieve excellence in a dynamic environment. The 2015 study recognizes hospitals that have clearly demonstrated the vision to develop long-term excellence in care, efficiency and community value. The program objectively gauges leadership impact and organizational health by assessing the ability to drive consistent, outstanding performance versus the performance of industry peers.

Lawrence Memorial Hospital is a major sponsor of WellCommons.

How the Truven Health study works

The 100 Top Hospitals designation is based on hospital-wide performance improvement over time. Using independent, quantitative research, the Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals study identifies hospitals and leadership teams that provide the highest level of value to their communities, based on a national balanced scorecard.

Using independent, quantitative research, the Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals study identifies hospitals and leadership teams that provide the highest level of value to their communities, based on a national balanced scorecard.

The scorecard measures overall organizational performance across 11 key analytic measures that encompass patient safety, quality of patient care, operational efficiency, financial stability and patient perception of care. Rather than conducting a one-year analysis – which only captures performance at a specific snapshot in time – the Truven Health study looks at data that reflect five-year performance for most measures.

As leadership at the Truven Health Center for Performance Improvement explains, the 100 Top Hospitals program is different from all other hospital ranking systems because its purpose is to show hospitals how and where they can improve, not to help consumers choose a hospital. Furthermore, it is completely objective: hospitals cannot apply for consideration, and winners do not pay to market this honor.

What this means for LMH patients

What does our recognition as a top 100 hospital mean for patients? Research shows that Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals:

• Have fewer patient complications.

• Avoid adverse patient safety events.

• Have lower mortality and 30-day readmission rates.

• Keep expenses low.

• Send patients home sooner.

• Score better on patient satisfaction surveys.

Truven Health research further reveals that, as a top 100 hospital:

• LMH excels across our entire organization, from high quality patient care to financial management, community benefits and more.

• We have very strong board leadership, and hospital leaders at LMH are very effective with management and organizational goal development.

• We follow care standards more closely than nearly 1,000 similarly sized hospitals and nearly 3,000 other hospitals throughout the United States.

• We use advanced information technology processes.

Building on a culture of Operational Excellence

At LMH, we earned our position among the top U.S. hospitals through our culture of performance improvement, our outstanding leadership and staff who embody evidence-based management as well as evidence-based medicine, and our unwavering dedication to the health of our community. But those associated with LMH know there is always room for improvement. Achieving this recognition means that we are held to even higher standards of accountability. It is expected that we will continuously and intentionally get better every day.

This past year LMH embraced the principles of Lean Six Sigma by launching an initiative known as “Operational Excellence.” Lean Six Sigma is a data-driven, problem-solving methodology and process improvement system. First used in manufacturing and engineering to reduce and eliminate waste, errors and variation, this structured approach has been adopted by many healthcare organizations because it stresses customer focus and fact-based decision making. Integrating Lean Six Sigma principles into our culture will result in increased customer satisfaction and delivery of a higher level of quality patient care at a lower cost. These are the very metrics that Truven Health Analytics measures hospitals against and recognizes those that excel with the 100 Top Hospitals award.

As the center of healthcare in this community – not to mention one of Lawrence’s largest employers – we know financial health, operational efficiency and high quality patient care must be at the center of everything we do, and every decision we make. Our focus going forward will be to continuously reset our performance targets for ongoing improvement.

We value a culture of excellence and performance improvement throughout every aspect of our organization. Operational Excellence helps us build on our achievements and continuously raise our own standards of excellence.

For more information on the Truven Health study, visit www.100tophospitals.com.

Janice Early is Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, which is a major sponsor of WellCommons.