Sutter Davis Named One of Nation's Top 100 Hospitals

DAVIS, Calif., March 19, 2008 Sutter Davis Hospital was named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® by Thomson Healthcare, which recognizes hospitals that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, financial performance, and efficiency.

The “2007 Thomson 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success” study appears in the March 17 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine. Sutter Davis is one of just four hospitals in the state to receive this award.

“This well-respected and well-deserved recognition is another acknowledgement of our commitment to quality care and patient satisfaction,” said Sutter Davis Hospital Chief Administrative Officer Janet Wagner. “We’re proud of this recognition and what it means for our patients, medical staff, employees, volunteers and the entire Davis community and Yolo County.”

Being named a 100 Top Hospital is the latest honor given to Sutter Davis Hospital in the past year. Sutter Davis was the recipient of Studer Group's Fire Starter of the Month Award in November 2007, which honored the hospital’s commitment to clinical, service and operational excellence. It also received Sutter Health’s President’s Award for its overall excellence.

According to the study, the highest performance levels in patient safety were achieved by the 100 hospitals in the study that delivered the highest balanced performance across quality, efficiency and financial stability. If all hospitals had performed at the level of these leading hospitals on the eight patient safety measures studied, they would have saved $253 million and 7,914 lives during the time period the study examined.

“Employers, health plans, and hospitals need to take note that we have entered a new phase in driving transformation of the healthcare industry,” said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president in the Center for Healthcare Improvement at Thomson Healthcare. “Hospitals setting new levels of patient safety are those with the highest balanced scores across quality, efficiency, and financial performance.”

The 15th edition of the Thomson 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study uses a balanced scorecard approach and scores hospitals according to eight key organization-wide measures:

• Risk-adjusted mortality
• Risk-adjusted complications
• Patient safety composite
• Average core measures scores
• Severity-adjusted average length of stay
• Expense per adjusted discharge
• Profit from operations (Sutter Davis is a not-for-profit hospital)
• Cash-to-debt ratio

The Thomson award was formerly called the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals. However, Solucient was acquired by Thomson in 2007 and the name was changed in June.

More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com. More information on Sutter Davis Hospital can be found at www.sutterdavis.org.

What does a 100 Top Hospitals National award mean to the community?
A Thomson 100 Top Hospitals® National award winner is an organization that ranks above the top 90 percent on hospital-wide performance when compared with its national peers. The hospital is scored on eight performance measures. Considered together, these measures represent how well the hospital performed organization-wide.

Thomson Healthcare measures how well the hospital is managed by answering these questions:

• Are patient outcomes good?
• Is patient safety improving?
• Are finances stable?
• Are the hospital operations efficient?

Being named a 100 Top Hospitals National winner means:

• The hospital's board of trustees, management, medical staff and care employees are working together to provide high quality care and greater value to the community.
• As a major employer, the hospital is financially strong and can pay good salaries, support the local economy and invest in new technologies to improve care.
• As a high-performing business, the hospital executes and measures performance to improve clinical quality and efficiency of services. Some of the business practices may be models that could be helpful to other business leaders in the community.
• As a provider of care that is attempting to improve the health status of citizens, the community has a hospital to be proud of — no matter what its size or category.

---

Contacts
Gary Zavoral
(916) 454-6825