Aurora Health Care nationally recognized for high-quality, cost-effective care

Contact: Myrle Croasdale
(414) 299.1691
Myrle.Croasdale@aurora.org
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Aurora Health Care nationally recognized for
high-quality, cost-effective care

QUEST project saves 80,000 lives, $9.1 billion over four years

Milwaukee – Aurora Health Care is among the best in the nation at providing safe, reliable and efficient care, according to America’s largest health care performance improvement alliance.

Four participating Aurora hospitals have been named top performers in Premier healthcare alliance’s QUEST: High Performing Hospitals® collaborative. Aurora achieved top scores for the following performance goals:

• Reducing mortality by at least 31 percent;
• Reducing the average cost of care to less than $5,690 per discharge;
• Reliably delivering all evidence-based care measures to patients in the areas of heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care at least 95 percent of the time;
• Improving the hospital experience so that patients favorably rate their stay and would recommend the facility to others at least 73 percent of the time;
• Reducing preventable harm events; and
• Reducing readmissions by at least 12 percent.

This is the third consecutive year that Aurora has achieved such high marks.

Nick Turkal, MD, Aurora Health Care’s president and CEO said, “This recognition underscores Aurora’s ongoing commitment to building a culture that makes quality a priority among all our physicians, nurses, technicians and staff.”

Aurora Health Care/ Add one

Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center was among the best of the best in the QUEST initiative, achieving top scores in five of the six performance goals. It was one of only 18 hospitals to get five or more awards.

Aurora Medical Centers in Summit, West Allis and Oshkosh achieved four awards each. Forty eight of the 333 QUEST hospital members achieved four or more awards.

Susan DeVore, Premier president and CEO said, “Meeting the imperatives of better care at a lower cost isn’t easy for health systems to achieve on their own. It’s this type of collaboration and innovation that’s needed system-wide to build a sustainable future for health care and most importantly communities nationwide.”

QUEST supports hospitals in delivering the best care possible, as well as sharing collaborative solutions to improve health care nationwide and influence public policies. Together, 333 QUEST hospital members, from more than 40 states, share ideas, strategies and proven practices to reduce variation, an approach that has been shown to improve care quality, safety and cost. The collaborative includes a hospitals of various sizes, geographies and teaching status, including a large number of disproportionate share and safety net facilities.

Over four and a half years, QUEST hospitals saved nearly 92,000 lives and $9.1 billion in unnecessary costs.

Also during this time frame:
• Members’ observed mortality was 10 percent lower than national averages, when compared to what is expected.
• Nationally, costs of inpatient care increased by about 28 percent, versus 11 percent for QUEST hospitals.

QUEST aligns closely with federal policies such as value-based purchasing, and was started well before these policies became reality. QUEST is a test bed for many pending reform effort, and has shown what could be achieved in these policy areas over time.

An advisory panel of experts from the country’s top health organizations, such as the National Quality Forum, The Joint Commission and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, guide QUEST members to achieve success.

Premier is the nation’s largest performance improvement alliance of more than 2,800 U.S. hospitals and 90,000 other sites using the power of collaboration and technology to lead the transformation to coordinated, high-quality, cost-effective care.
Aurora Health Care is a not-for-profit Wisconsin based health care provider and a national leader in efforts to improve the quality of care. Aurora provides care at sites in more than 90 communities throughout eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.
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