April 18, 2005 -- Congratulations are definitely in order! The University of Virginia Medical Center has once again been named a Solucient 100 Top
Hospital. In addition, we are the only hospital in Virginia included in this prestigious ranking.

What does it mean to be a Solucient 100 Top Hospital? Solucient, a company that specializes in compiling and analyzing healthcare information, reviews data
from 6,000 acute-care hospitals with 25 or more beds in the United States and crunches the numbers. It chooses only the very best for its Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study.

When a hospital makes it into the Solucient Top 100, that means it ranks among the top 1.6 percent, better than 98 percent of the hospitals in the country. This ranking is based on nine clinical, financial, and operating-efficiency measures, such as mortality and infection rates, average length of stay, operating profit margins and expenses per discharge.

That is a significant accomplishment from any perspective. And it is an accomplishment that’s based on consistent, everyday excellence, not a special one-time effort. R. Edward Howell, vice president and chief executive officer of the UVa Medical Center, credits the dedication of faculty and staff: “Their work continues to build the Medical Center’s reputation as one of the premier hospitals to turn to for medical care in the United States.”

The Best of the Best

Our accomplishments don’t stop with the top 100. Even among the elite group of 100 Top Hospitals, UVa Medical Center ranks highly. As a hospital that has been recognized more than four times, the Medical Center has been designated one of Solucient’s “best” benchmark hospitals. According to Solucient, their
consistent inclusion in the list indicates that these “best-of-the-best” hospitals provide their communities with outstanding care.

In fact, UVa has been named a top 100 hospital six times since the rankings were started 12 years ago. Only 10 hospitals on this year’s list had a comparable record.

Benchmark for Teaching Hospitals

The ultimate purpose of the 100 Top Hospitals survey is to create meaningful benchmarks for different kinds of hospitals. As a result, Solucient divides the hospitals it examines into five groups depending on their size, teaching status,
and residency program involvement and includes the best in each category in its
final listing. This is an acknowledgment that these factors have a profound effect
on the types of patients a hospital treats and the scope of services it provides.
The Medical Center is classified as a major teaching hospital because it has
400 or more acute-care beds in service and an intern/resident-per-bed ratio of
at least 0.25, among other criteria.

Solucient examined 147 major teachinghospitals across the country and chose just 15 for the top 100. Solucient holds up the average performance of these top hospitals as an achievable target for their peers.

The Performance Difference

For patients, the difference between going to a benchmark hospital – and especially a best-of-the-benchmark hospital like the UVa Medical Center
– rather than a non-ranked hospital can be substantial. Solucient notes
that the best of the 100 Top benchmark hospitals have achieved higher survival rates with few patient complications and adverse outcomes and at lower costs than their peers. They have also been pioneers in efficiency– by sending patients back home sooner and delivering care in alternative, more convenient, and lower cost settings, than their peers.

Among differences Solucient found between benchmark hospitals and their peers: salary and benefits are $1,900 per year higher per full-time staff member; expense per discharge is 10 percent lower; the average patient stay is nearly half a day shorter; the median total profit margin is 4 percentage points higher;
and the staff-to-patient ratio increased by 12 percent between 1999 and 2003.

A Model for All of U.S.

A hospital cannot apply for membership in the 100 Top Hospitals list. The rankings are purely quantitative and are based on everyday performance.
All the data used in the 100 Top Hospitals study came from Solucient’s own hospital database, which is the largest in the nation, and the publicly available MedPAR (Medicare Provider Analysis and Review) data.

As a result, there are no guarantees that, having made the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals list one year, a medical center will make the list the next.

As we look towards 2006, our best strategy is to continue to work steadily to improve the quality of our patient care and our financial performance. By doing what we do well, we will bring to life our Decade Plan goal of becoming a model for all of U.S.

A Better Future

Solucient’s purpose in creating the 100 Top Hospitals listing is to create national benchmarks for other hospitals to aspire to. These top hospitals have higher survival rates, keep more patients complication-free, and hold down expenses – all the while maintaining higher profits than their peers.

The difference is dramatic:

Solucient estimates that if all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as those in the 100 Top Hospitals

• An additional 66,342 patients would survive each year

• More than 66,506 patient complications would be avoided annually

• Expenses would decline by an aggregate $6.2+ billion a year.

If the same standards were applied to all inpatients, the impact would be even greater.