PINC AI™, the technology and services brand of Premier, Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC), today announced the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals®. The full list of recognized hospitals was published in an exclusive online article by Fortune.

Based on the data analyzed, it is estimated that if all hospitals performed at the same level of this year’s top performers, more than 350,000 additional lives could have been saved, more than 607,000 additional patients could have been complication-free and more than $17.6 billion in inpatient costs could have been saved for the 2024 study year.

The Performance of Facilities on the 100 Top Hospitals®Program List

To create the list, an objective, quantitative analysis of publicly available data was conducted to identify the top hospitals in the United States. The primary purpose of the PINC AI™ 100 Top Hospitals® program is to inspire hospital and health system leaders to pursue higher performance and deliver added value to patients and communities. The program leverages transparent, non-biased data to help inform strategies for sustained performance. Organizations do not apply to participate in the study, and award recipients do not pay to market their honor.

This year, based on comparisons between the study’s top performers and a peer group of similar hospitals, the analysis found that the top performers of the 100 Top Hospitals® program delivered better outcomes while operating more efficiently and at a lower cost. Compared to peer hospitals, this year’s top performers had:

  • 39 percent fewer inpatient deaths than peer hospitals.
  • 26.6 percent fewer patients with complications.
  • 30.6 percent fewer healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
  • A 21.1 percent lower inpatient expense per discharge.
  • 0.5-day shorter average length of stay.
  • Better reported patient experience scores, with a top-box Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) score of 73 percent versus 67 percent for peer hospitals.

“Hospitals and health systems continue to recognize the vital importance of performance improvement for high-quality patient care, proving value and enabling the innovations that drive healthcare forward,” said Leigh Anderson, Premier’s Chief Operating Officer and leader of PINC AI™. “The transparent, non-biased and actionable data helps to set performance standards for hospitals nationwide and enables leaders to make informed decisions for improvement as they work to improve outcomes for the patients and communities they serve.”

Special Designations

Several hospitals on the 100 Top Hospitals® list also received special designations of having either the highest rate of improvement or delivering outstanding care in communities that serve a higher proportion of patients with significant social needs.

Everest Award

There were 26 facilities that received the Everest Award for setting national benchmarks for both the fastest rate of improvement and highest current year performance on the 100 Top Hospitals® balanced scorecard. This award recognizes the boards, executives and medical staff leaders who developed and executed the strategies that helped drive the highest rates of improvement, resulting in the highest performance in the U.S. at the end of five years.

“We’re very proud of the hospitals that achieved the Everest Award designation,” said Anderson. “It’s truly a testament to their focus on improvement in quality, patient and clinician experiences, and financial and operational efficiency.”

Community Champion Designation

New this year to the 100 Top Hospitals® program is the Community Champion Designation. This is a separate study and selective distinction for those hospitals that have achieved 100 Top Hospitals® status and are delivering outstanding care in communities that serve a higher proportion of patients with significant social needs relative to the entire in-study population. In 2024, the Community Champion Designation honors six organizations that achieved this level of distinction.

Rankings Methodology

The PINC AI™ 100 Top Hospitals® program focuses on short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of patients. Researchers evaluated 2,601 short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals and health systems. All research was based on the following public data sets: Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) data, and data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Care Compare website. For complete methodology details, please review the study here.

Eligible hospitals are ranked for performance across 10 measures within five domains.

Final rank is determined based on performance for all individual measures. To allow for fair comparison, hospitals are stratified and then ranked within five separate peer groups with a pre-determined number of high-performing hospitals: major teaching hospitals (15 facilities), teaching hospitals (25 facilities), large community hospitals (20 facilities), medium community hospitals (20 facilities), and small community hospitals (20 facilities).

Methodology for Selecting Special Designations within the 100 Top Hospital® List

The methodology for Everest Award winner selections can be summarized in three main steps:

  • Identify the annual 100 Top Hospitals® benchmark hospitals using a balanced scorecard of performance measures from the most current data period available (2022 at the time of this study).
  • Using our five-year (2018-2022) trending methodology to select the 100 hospitals that have shown the fastest, most consistent improvement rates on the same balanced scorecard of performance measures.
  • Identifying those hospitals that ranked in the top 100 on both lists.

The methodology for selecting the Community Champion Designation recipients can be summarized in three main steps:

  • Identify the annual 100 Top Hospitals® benchmark hospitals using a balanced scorecard of performance measures from the most current data period available (2022 at the time of this study).
  • Calculate a hospital-level Social Drivers of Health (SDOH) index based on a wide range of social factors generally associated with adverse outcomes and higher cost of care. This index is comprised of dual eligibility, low-income subsidy, disability, and end-stage renal failure status with Medicare and Medicaid, urban rural status, and ICD-10 coding indicating the presence of behavioral health and SDOH factors. Mean SDOH indices are calculated for each in-study facility. All research was based on public data sets, including CMS data.
  • 100 Top Hospital® benchmark hospitals with a mean SDOH index in the top quintile of highest risk patients are presented with the Community Champion Designation.

Combining these methodologies yields a select group of Everest Award and Community Champion Designation recipients. The number of top performers will vary every year, based solely on performance.

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About the PINC AI™ Platform

PINC AI™ is the technology and services platform of Premier, Inc. (NASDAQ: PINC). With more than 20 years’ worth of cost, quality and operational data gleaned from 45 percent of U.S. hospital discharges, 2.7 billion hospital outpatient and clinic encounters and 177 million physician office visits, the PINC AI™ platform provides actionable intelligence to help improve outcomes, support improved financial performance and enable success in new, alternative payment models. PINC AI™ incorporates the 100 Top Hospitals ® Program that inspires hospital and health system leaders to pursue higher performance and deliver added value to their patients and communities. PINC AI™ offerings rely on advanced analytics to identify improvement opportunities; support award-winning Strategic Collaboratives for value-based care, maternal and infant health, workforce innovation, and health equity; and consulting services for clinical and operational design, and workflow solutions to hardwire sustainable change. The PINC AI™ platform is also the data engine powering Premier’s newest brands – Remitra® and Contigo Health®. With a leading network of provider organizations, the PINC AI™ platform accelerates ingenuity and serves as a large-scale innovation catalyst in healthcare. PINC AI™ offerings and capabilities can be followed on X and LinkedIn.

Premier, Inc. Forward-Looking Statements

Statements made in this release that are not statements of historical or current facts, including but not limited to those related to Premier’s ability to advance its long-term strategies and develop innovations for, transform, and improve healthcare, and the intended or expected performance or utility of Premier’s and PINC AI’s products and services, are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause performance or achievements to be materially different from historical results or from any future performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. More information on risk factors relating to Premier and its products and services is included from time to time in the “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” “Risk Factors,” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” sections of Premier’s periodic and current filings with the SEC, which are also made available on Premier’s website at investors.premierinc.com. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Premier undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information or future events that occur after that date, or otherwise.