Marion General Hospital was named one of the nation's 100 Top Hospitals® by Thomson Reuters, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare. The award recognizes hospitals that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, patient satisfaction, financial performance, and operational efficiency. This is the second consecutive year MGH has been selected for this honor and the third time in the sixteen-year history of the award.   

"We are proud to be a community-based hospital that strives to be nationally recognized for the care we provide. This award reinforces our commitment to provide world-class quality acute care services to our Healthcare Community," states Paul L. Usher, president and CEO.

The winners were identified through an in-depth analysis, the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals®: National Benchmarks study 2008.

The study evaluated 3,000 short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals in nine areas: mortality, medical complications, patient safety and average length of stay, expenses, profitability, cash-to-debt ratio, patient satisfaction, and adherence to clinical standards of care. The winning hospitals were announced in the March 30 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine.

"The 100 Top Hospitals winners raised the bar again this year, delivering a higher level of reliable care and greater value for their communities," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs at Thomson Reuters.

If all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as Medicare patients treated in the winning hospitals:

• More than 107,500 additional patients would survive each year.
• Nearly 132,000 patient complications would be avoided annually.
• Expenses would decline by $5.9 billion a year.
• The average patient stay would decrease by nearly half a day.

More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com.