Rush University Medical Center has been selected as a 2009 Premier Award for Quality winner for its commitment to outstanding patient care and operational efficiency — one of only 23 hospitals, out of more than 3,796 eligible hospitals nationwide, to receive the award from the Premier healthcare alliance. The award was announced on June 17.

The Award for Quality recognizes healthcare organizations that efficiently provide outstanding patient care and consistently set the standard in clinical excellence. Criteria for the award were performance-based data that include measures of quality in clinical outcomes, resource utilization and clinical processes.

Premier is a healthcare alliance of more than 2,100 hospitals and 58,000 other healthcare sites in the U.S. dedicated to improving healthcare quality and affordability. Premier maintains the nation’s most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network.

All acute-care inpatient facilities in the U.S. that submitted data to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and to the CMS Hospital Compare project were considered for the Award for Quality.

Using the agency’s 2007 data, Premier calculated quality and efficiency indexes for each hospital for 62 disease groups, as well as for the entire hospital, covering all disease groups. Quality was measured by the incidence of three adverse outcomes — mortality, morbidity and complications — which were combined into a single index. The efficiency index, reflecting how efficiently a hospital allocates resources among patients, was based on length of stay for all patients treated. The hospitals were also evaluated for their processes of care, which ensure that all patients receive the same standard of care.

“We are pleased to be recognized as one of the nation’s leading hospitals, delivering for our patients the highest standards of medical care efficiently and consistently,” said Dr. Larry Goodman, president and CEO of Rush University Medical Center.