Newswise — UC San Diego Health has been recognized as a top performer in the 2022 Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Ranking by Vizient, Inc. UC San Diego Health is one of a few members in the “Comprehensive Academic Medical Center” cohort to be recognized for excellence in delivering high-quality care. This achievement represents the fourth consecutive year that UC San Diego Health has been ranked among the top ten academic health systems in the United States.

“This data-driven performance award is evidence that our teams are achieving high-quality health care in the domains that matter most: safety, mortality, effectiveness, efficiency, patient centeredness and equity,” said Patty Maysent, CEO, UC San Diego Health. “We empower our teams to speak up to achieve measurably-better care and the results are seen in these impressive rankings.”

The Vizient Quality and Accountability Ranking helps participating hospitals and health systems understand their performance compared to their peers and identifies structures and processes associated with high performance in quality and safety across a broad spectrum of patient care activity. The recognition period is for work spanning July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022.

“With the right structures and processes in place, our multidisciplinary teams can champion optimal patient outcomes at every level of our organization,” said Christopher Longhurst, MD, chief medical officer, UC San Diego Health. “Unlike other ranking systems that may only evaluate Medicare patients, the inclusivity of all patients in this ranking helps us universally evaluate and improve care for all of our patients, regardless of insurance status.”

This year, 650 participating hospitals were segmented into four cohorts for the Vizient Quality and Accountability Ranking. The Vizient ranking factors in measures from the Vizient Clinical Data Base, which includes performance data from the HCAHPS survey and the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network. The scorecard is also aligned with the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations for harm reduction, which includes lowering readmissions, infections and falls.

“This national award reflects UC San Diego Health’s commitment to being a highly reliable, learning health system that prioritizes safe and high-quality care with zero harm,” said Chad VanDenBerg, MPH, chief quality and patient safety officer at UC San Diego Health. “We hope that these rankings, as well as our #1 local ranking in U.S. News & World Report, will provide objective third-party feedback that guides patients to select UC San Diego Health as their health care provider.”

UC San Diego Health ranks in 10 specialties by U.S. News & World Report and is rated as “high performing” in 17 common procedures and conditions, which cover a spectrum of care from heart procedures and stroke care, to orthopedic and cancer surgeries.

UC San Diego Health is also recognized as having the highest level of safety from The Leapfrog Group, with an “A” for both campuses. Further, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recognized UC San Diego Health as a five-star institution for the quality of our care.

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