Quality Measures
Emory Healthcare (EHC) has cultivated a strong culture dedicated to quality. The FY2012 Goal for Quality is to achieve continuous enhancements in clinical outcomes, patient safety, and service, resulting in a national ranking for quality among the top 10 percent of academic medical centers in the U.S. according to the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) and Press Ganey. In benchmarking ourselves to academic medical centers, we are comparing ourselves to the top ranked hospitals in the country, which treat the very sickest patients. Emory University Hospital (EUH) has the highest “case mix index” among all the UHC hospitals, which means that EUH treats the very sickest patients in the country. Most data comparisons do not take this severity fully into account, but UHC does the best job of doing so.
Compare “Apples with Apples”
When your life is on the line and you’re looking for a hospital that provides the best care for patients with serious or difficult medical problems, a number of factors are important influences in making the best choice. When evaluating information about clinical quality, you should be wary of false promises and compare “apples to apples.”
In order to make a good decision about which hospital is the best for you, look twice at the clinical quality delivered at individual hospitals before you rely on “one-size-fits-all” health care comparisons. Consider, too, that academic medical centers like EHC serve patients who cannot be treated at other facilities and offer more specialists involved with medical advances, teaching and research – which translates into increased options for patients with complex health issues.
About the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC)
The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), formed in 1984 and headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, is a national organization of health care leaders, which helps members deliver world-class patient care. UHC is an alliance of 113 academic medical centers and 254 of their affiliated hospitals representing approximately 90 percent of the nation’s nonprofit academic medical centers. By providing an objective third-party source of comparative national quality data, UHC helps its members achieve excellence in such areas as quality, patient safety, cost-effectiveness and accountability.
