Voluntary QUEST project serving as a proving ground for healthcare delivery system reforms; Participant hospitals save 22,164 lives, $2.13 billion in two years
Methodist Medical Center has been recognized for achieving top performance standards in quality and cost-effective care in a voluntary, nationwide hospital performance improvement project.
Based on second-year results from the project, Methodist Medical Center achieved top performance in the following performance goals:
• Safely reduce the cost of care for each patient’s hospitalization.
• Save lives by eliminating avoidable hospital mortalities.
• Deliver the most reliable and effective care – every recommended evidence-based care measure to every patient every time.
Methodist Medical Center is bending the cost curve, reducing the case mix and inflation adjusted cost by an average of $120 per patient as a participant in the Premier healthcare alliance QUEST®: High-Performing Hospitals collaborative. Methodist Medical Center also saved an estimated 27 lives and improved the delivery of recommended evidence-based care measures by 2.5 percent. Evidence-based care measures include interventions such as administering aspirin upon arrival and discharge, and smoking cessation for heart attack patients.
“As participants in QUEST, we are taking the next steps to achieve reliable delivery of the best clinical, financial and satisfaction outcomes. Through collaboration, data transparency and best practice sharing, participants will further secure their position as industry leaders, creating a competitive advantage.”
Developed in partnership with Premier and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), QUEST is designed to support hospitals in reaching new levels of performance and inform public policies with meaningful solutions supported by real results. Together, QUEST hospitals share ideas and best practices to create effective strategies for reducing variation, an approach that has shown to support care quality, safety and cost improvements.
“QUEST hospitals are challenged to overcome process failures and excessive costs, and measure themselves against one another to achieve top performance,” said Susan DeVore, Premier president and CEO. “They have committed to serve as a test bed, identifying areas where further improvements are needed while showing what is possible in performance improvement in healthcare. Providers such as Methodist Medical Center are setting the standard for top quality care.”
A three-year project, QUEST is made up of 157 not-for-profit hospitals across 35 states, including urban/rural, large/small and teaching/non-teaching facilities. In the first two years of the project, participants have increased the delivery of every recommended patient care measure by 12.8 percent, delivering perfect care 90.5 percent of the time. In doing so, QUEST hospitals have:
• Saved an estimated 22,164 lives, nearly three times the lives saved in year one.
• Reduced inflation adjusted costs by $2.13 billion or $400 per patient, saving more than 3.5 times that achieved in year one.
• The number of additional patients receiving evidence-based care climbed to 43,741, nearly double the results achieved in the first year.
Seventy-six participants achieved top performance in the three measured areas in year two of the project. Twenty-nine are top performers in years one and two of QUEST.
According to an analysis, if all hospitals in the nation could achieve results comparable to the QUEST members, an additional 63,801 lives and $22.6 billion could be saved.
QUEST also benefits from an Advisory Panel of experts from 20 of the country’s top health organizations, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, National Quality Forum, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.