SMH Earns 3 Prestigious Honors in 1 Month
July was a banner month for SMH, as the hospital earned three major awards for its quality of care.
Top 100 Hospital & Top 40 Teaching Hospital:
Early last month, Sarasota Memorial was honored as one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals and among the top 40 teaching hospitals in the 2022 Fortune/Merative 100 Top Hospitals report.
SMH outperformed thousands of hospitals across the nation on all clinical and operational benchmarks evaluated.
Among other study findings, SMH and the other highest-performing hospitals:
• Had lower inpatient mortality (25% fewer deaths than expected, considering patient severity)
• Had fewer patient complications (30% fewer complications than expected, considering patient severity)
• Delivered care that resulted in fewer hospital-acquired infections (47% fewer HAIs than peer hospitals)
• Had lower 30-day mortality and 30-day hospital-wide readmission rates
• Sent patients home sooner
• Kept inpatient expenses low while still maintaining a healthy financial environment
• Scored higher on patient ratings of their overall hospital experience
This is the sixth year that Sarasota Memorial has been recognized as a top 100 hospital by Fortune/Merative (formerly Watson Health). It also has ranked repeatedly among the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals.
In this year’s 100 Top Hospitals study, our teaching program was spotlighted. SMH-Sarasota was listed among the top three teaching hospitals in Florida, and top 40 in the nation. Study authors noted that hospitals appearing repeatedly on their Top Hospitals lists share key characteristics that elevate them in the health care industry, including nursing excellence, deeply committed leadership, quality-focused hospital boards, an embrace of data and innovative technology and local autonomy within health systems.
U.S. News Best Hospitals Ranking:
SMH also earned top marks in U.S. News’ 2022-2023 “Best Hospitals” report, released in late July, ranking among the 50 best hospitals in the nation in two specialties, Rehabilitation and Urology.
This is the second consecutive year Rehabilitation Services was ranked among the top 50 in the U.S., recognizing our program’s excellence in helping patients recover from debilitating illnesses and serious injuries.
SMH also was named a “high performer” in Gastroenterology and Gastrointestinal Surgery, and in 15 procedures and conditions most common among Medicare patients, including:
• Abdominal aortic aneurysm repair
• Aortic valve surgery
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Colon cancer surgery
• Diabetes
• Heart attack
• Heart bypass surgery
• Heart failure
• Hip replacement
• Kidney failure
• Knee replacement
• Lung cancer surgery
• Prostate cancer surgery
• Stroke
• Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR)
We also were ranked the No. 1 hospital in the region and No. 6 in Florida.
Continued CMS 5-Star Rating:
The third honor SMH received in July was a continued five-star rating for quality from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
In CMS’ latest ratings update, Sarasota Memorial was the only hospital in Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties to earn five stars. While many hospitals lose or gain stars from year to year, we have had consistently exceptional results. The hospital’s five-star streak extends all the way back to the federal program’s inception in 2016. In fact, we are the only hospital in Florida, and one of only 33 hospitals nationwide, to have earned five stars in every rating period in the last six years!
CMS assigns the star ratings by evaluating hospitals’ results in dozens of quality measures that are divided into five categories: mortality, safety of care, readmissions, patient experience and timely and effective care.
In the new report, about 430 of the nearly 4,600 U.S. hospitals that were evaluated earned the highest rating. As in previous years, most hospitals received two, three or four stars, while nearly 200 hospitals across the nation received one star.
Congratulations to the entire team for their excellent performance!