Fact File

Hospitals and health systems, as large employers, are feeling the burden of rising healthcare costs. In fact, hospital employee use of plan services is greater than that of the average U.S. employee. Hospital workers, on average, have higher utilization rates and carry a higher burden of chronic illness than employees in other market segments. These differences are only partially explained by age or gender. Hospital employee groups exhibit a skew toward a younger female population relative to the U.S. workforce; the average health system worker is two years younger than the average worker in the U.S. workforce. Truven Health Analytics™ researchers conclude that a health system with 16,000 eligible employees would save $1.5 million annually for each 1 percent reduction in health risk.

The Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals® outperform their peers by demonstrating balanced excellence?operating effectively across all functional areas of their organizations. The data demonstrates how patients' health and hospitals' bottom lines could be improved. Based on comparisons between the study winners and a peer group of similar high-volume hospitals that were not winners, the study found that if all hospitals performed at the level of this year's winners, more than 164,000 additional lives could be saved, nearly 82,000 additional patients could be complication-free, $6 billion could be saved, and the typical patient could be released from the hospital half a day sooner. This analysis is based on the Medicare patients included in this study. If the same standards were applied to all inpatients, the impact would be even greater.

The combination of turbulence in the economy and changing models of care in the healthcare industry has had an impact over the past few years. As uncertainty wanes, there are some promising signs when it comes to outpatient trends, although there is notable variation based on specialty or procedure.