(West Pennsylvania Hospital: Pittsburgh, PA) -- The Award for Quality (AFQ) identifies health care organizations that efficiently provide outstanding patient care and consistently set the standard in clinical excellence nationwide, according to Susan DeVore, Premier Healthcare's incoming president and chief executive officer. West Penn is receiving the award for the second consecutive year.

“The Award for Quality honors the efforts of our nation’s leading hospitals to provide superior quality and operational efficiency,” says DeVore. “We are thrilled to celebrate the efforts of these facilities as they improve the health of the communities they serve.”

Premier considers performance-based criteria in selecting its AFQ winners, including clinical quality outcomes, resource utilization, and clinical process indicators to measure top performers at the overall hospital level.

Nearly 3,800 hospitals were evaluated by Premier for the 2009 AFQ. Other recipients this year include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago and Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia.

“This award is a tribute to the outstanding quality of the physicians, nurses, and allied healt hcare professionals who work at West Penn Hospital. Through their unwavering commitment to excellence, we are able to provide the community and our patients a level of care and service that distinguishes us among our peers,” says Dawn M. Gideon, executive vice president and chief of hospital operations for the West Penn Allegheny Health System.

Part of the West Penn Allegheny Health System, West Penn Hospital is a leader in patient care, education, and research, and serves as the clinical campus for Temple University School of Medicine. In addition to the Premier AFQ, West Penn was also recently named a Top 100 Hospital by Thomson Reuters and was the first hospital in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania to be awarded Magnet recognition status by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. This prestigious designation recognizes hospitals for excellence in nursing.

“Consistency is the true hallmark of success when it comes to quality benchmarks in health care and we are extremely proud to be recognized once more by Premier, as well as other national organizations, for the dedication of our staff and the exceptional work that they do to raise the bar on quality and efficiency,” says Marian Block, MD, vice president and chief quality officer at West Penn Hospital.

All acute care inpatient facilities in the United States that submitted data to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the CMS Hospital Compare project were considered for the AFQ.

Using MedPar 2007 data, quality and efficiency indexes were calculated for 60 disease groups and at the overall hospital level. Quality was measured by the incidence of three adverse outcomes: mortality, morbidity and complications, which are combined into a single quality index using the preference weightings from the corporate hospital rating project. The efficiency index was generated using length of stay to proxy for resource utilization.

Acute care facilities attaining the top 1-percent designation are identified as having scores in the top two quintiles for process of care, and in 10 out of 60 disease groups and at the overall hospital level for quality and efficiency. Additionally, hospitals had measures for quality and efficiency that were equal to or exceeded expected outcomes.

Nearly 200 hospitals and health systems created and entirely own the Premier healthcare alliance where they collect, analyze, and share knowledge nationwide to improve the health of communities. For more information visit www.premierinc.com.

Additional information about the AFQ and related methodology can be found at www.premierinc.com/about/news/awards/index.jsp