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SALT LAKE CITY — When they were comparing data to create the annual 15 Top Health Systems list, Fortune magazine and PINC AI found none better than Intermountain Health, headquartered in Salt Lake City. The 2024 ranking marks the second time that Intermountain Health has made the Top 15 ranking and the first time it has been ranked No. 1.
In the annual reckoning, Intermountain — which has facilities in six states — earned five stars out of a possible five each for clinical outcomes, operation efficiency and patient experience. Others in the Top 5 were Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota; Houston Methodist in Houston; HCA Continental Division in Denver; and Sutter Health in Sacramento, California. The large category included 173 health systems.
"I'm beyond proud of our entire team of caregivers who have put in the work to make this possible," Rob Allen, president and CEO of Intermountain Health, said in a written statement. "This ranking is a tribute to their expertise and dedication to helping people live the healthiest lives possible."
In the medium health system category, HCA Mountain Division, headquartered in Salt Lake City, ranked No. 1, scoring five stars for clinical outcomes, five stars for operation efficiency and three stars for patient experience. The rest of the category's Top 5 are CHI Saint Joseph Health in Lexington, Kentucky; Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Oklahoma: Munson Healthcare in Traverse City, Michigan; and Ascension Sacred Heart Health System in Pensacola, Florida. The medium category included 92 health systems.
In Utah, the HCA Mountain Division hospitals are branded MountainStar. This is the second time the HCA Mountain Division made the list. Besides Utah, the division has facilities in Alaska and Idaho.
"This tremendous accomplishment belongs to our entire team," Evan Ray, president of HCA Healthcare's Mountain Division, said in a written statement. "This recognition is the result of the skill and compassion on display in each of our 1.5 million annual patient interactions, and also of the thoughtful coordination and shared purpose across our team of 10,000 professionals."
About the rankings
The Top 15 health systems list includes five hospitals each in the large, medium and small categories.
The data analysis was done by PINC AI, the health care company Premier's technology platform, using publicly available Medicare data. To be included, a health care system had to have at least two general, acute-care hospitals. In all, 2,778 hospitals in 355 health systems were considered, based on Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review data and some "core measures and patient satisfaction data" from the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services Hospital Compare website, among other factors.
Fortune emphasized that "healthy systems and hospitals do not apply for the awards, and winners do not pay to market this honor."
According to Fortune's announcement of the top health systems, "The analysis took into account data from every hospital within a system, and considered eight performance indicators, like inpatient mortality and average length of stay that measure an organization's clinical outcomes, operational efficiency and patient experience. The top-ranking systems, divided into three groups — large, medium and small — outperformed their peer systems on all eight measures. These were meaningful differences: Rates of hospital-acquired infections and inpatient mortality, for example, were both 21% lower for winning systems than non-winning peers. For the best-performing large systems, inpatient mortality was 32% lower, according to the study."
Fortune said that if all the health systems performed as well as the top-rated hospitals, "there would be 220,000 fewer patient deaths and 196,000 fewer patients to suffer complications during their hospital stay." The article noted that hospital stays would be shortened by a half-day, on average, and the cost of care would be 2% lower.
The magazine noted that Mayo Clinic, now No. 2 in large health systems behind Intermountain Health, has been in the top five a dozen times.
