Shelbyville, Ind. -- Following the earlier announcement of top national inpatient satisfaction rankings by Press Ganey, Major Hospital was notified that it had been named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals by Thomson Reuters. Major Hospital was one of only eight Indiana hospitals cited as one of America’s top 100 hospitals, joining St. Vincent and St. Francis in Central Indiana for the honor.

“Reviewing more than 3,000 hospitals, Thomson Reuters based their evaluation on excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, patient satisfaction, financial performance, and operational efficiency,” said Jack Horner, president and CEO of Major Hospital.

“This recognition independently validates once again the success of our physicians, nurses, staff and administrators in maintaining superb standards of patient care.”

“The 100 Top Hospitals winners raised the bar again this year, delivering a higher level of reliable care and greater value for their communities,” said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs at Thomson Reuters.

According to Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare, the Top 100 Hospital Awards means that:
-- Patients can feel comfortable that a hospital receiving the 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks designation is performing well against national standards
-- Its board, management, doctors, nurses, and hospital employees work together to constantly measure, review and improve performance to make a good place to receive care
-- The community the hospital serves can rely on the hospital as a well-managed major employer that will continue to invest in newer technology and services needed by the community
-- Patients are measurably less likely to have a complication, adverse patient safety event, or die unnecessarily
-- Patients are more likely to receive care efficiently at a reasonable comparative cost

The winners were identified through an in-depth analysis, the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals®: National Benchmarks study. The study evaluated more than 3,000 short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals in nine areas: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length of stay, expenses, profitability, cash-to-debt ratio, patient satisfaction, and adherence to clinical standards of care.

The winning hospitals were announced in the March 30 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine. Earlier this year patients of Major Hospital gave the regional healthcare facility top marks for inpatient satisfaction, according to data collected and analyzed by Press Ganey, a national healthcare consulting firm.

“In February we were very pleased to see from Press Ganey that Major Hospital ranked No. 1 in comparison to selected similar-sized hospitals in the region and in the top 2% nationally, and now we have additional verification of our continuous improvement programs in the national Thomson-Reuters analysis” explained Horner.

Analyzing information collected from patients from November 2008 through January 2009, Press Ganey found that Major Hospital ranked No. 1 (99 percentile) for inpatient satisfaction compared to a custom peer group of 11 hospitals in Indiana, and ranked in the top 2% of more than 1,000 hospitals nationwide.

“As we emphasized when the Press Ganey results came out, the goal of Major Hospital is nothing less than to be the best in the region for personalized healthcare delivery, and now both the national Thomson-Reuters and Press Ganey results demonstrate that we are advancing toward that goal as compared to hospitals across the country,” Horner emphasized. The hospital, which serves as the healthcare anchor for 28 different specialty practice groups in Major Health Partners (including oncology and orthopedics), began an intensive effort to ramp up already high standards over a year ago, , according to Linda Wessic, vice president of nursing for Major Hospital. “This deep focus of strategically renewing our long-term focus on high standards of healthcare is succeeding,” she said.

The national research results documented by both Thomson-Reuters and Press Ganey add to a long list of notable recognition for excellence received by Major Hospital. Among other achievements, the hospital has been recognized three times recently as one of America’s “100 most wired hospitals” by Hospitals and Health Networks. Major Hospital achieved this recognition and a later designation as one of “the top 25 wired rural and small hospitals” for its early adoption and implementation of a comprehensive medical information technology system.

Such systems improve patient safety and outcomes by standardizing information exchange and Major Hospital was one of the first healthcare facilities in the Midwest to deploy such state-of-the-art technology. Major Hospital also has achieved peer recognition as an early adopter of telemedicine applications in secure high-resolution image transmission and the fiber-based broadband linkage of all hospital-related physician practice groups.

“The promoting the health and well-being for the people of Shelby County and southeast Indiana remains our primary objective, which requires us to be the best that we can be. Both the Thomson-Reuters and Press Ganey results eloquently demonstrated that our invitation to our patients to ‘Experience the Major Difference’ is indeed a positive claim,” Horner concluded. More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at 100 Top Hospitals.

About Major Hospital
Major Hospital is the primary healthcare provider for Shelby County (Indiana) and serves patients and families throughout southeast Indiana through the hospital and its vertical practice groups in Major Health Partners. Founded in 1924, Major Hospital has served as regional leader in successfully delivering a wide spectrum of healthcare services, including oncology and orthopaedics. As documented by the national independent Press Ganey ranking service, Major Hospital currently enjoys a top ranking for inpatient satisfaction in central Indiana. It has also secured a national reputation as one the nation’s leading hospitals in health informatics. For more information, please visit Major Hospital.