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News Release
UPMC NORTHWEST HONORED AGAIN FOR VALUE TO THE COMMUNITY April 12, 2007 — For the third time in four years, UPMC Northwest has earned recognition for providing great value to the communities it serves. Cleverley & Associates placed UPMC Northwest on its fourth annual Community Value Index (CVI) Five-Star Hospital list because the hospital has low costs, low charges, and use its strong financial position to reinvest in providing care for patients. The Ohio-based health care financial strategies company ranks hospitals on several measures of value as part of its State of the Hospital Industry report, and places those in the top 20 percent of the nationwide ranking on its Five-Star Hospital list. Hospitals with the highest ranking make Cleverley & Associates’ elite CVI Top 100 honor roll; UPMC Northwest earned a place on the Top 100 list twice before, in 2004 and 2005. “It’s a challenge to control costs, charge reasonable fees, and still be a financially strong health care organization, but this recognition shows that we’re accomplishing all of these, and that we’re operating with financial integrity,” says UPMC Northwest President Neil Todhunter. “It’s a great accomplishment to get this recognition three out of four years, and to have an independent organization say that patients receive good value when they obtain care from UPMC Northwest.” Cleverly & Associates says it created the CVI to provide a unique measure of the value that a hospital provides to its community. Fundamentally, the CVI suggests that a hospital provides value when it is financially viable, appropriately reinvests back into its facilities, maintains a low cost structure, and has reasonable charges, the organization says. Cleverley & Associates bases its CVI rankings on nine measures of value including profitability, level of reinvestment, efficiency in use of facilities, percentage of debt financing, inpatient and outpatient costs, inpatient and outpatient charges, and volume of low-income patients. “It’s important to recognize that a large number of hospitals may perform well in one or two of the core areas of the CVI; however, those hospitals that are part of the Top 100 and Five-Star groups have achieved strong performance in each of the three areas (financial viability/plant reinvestment, costs, charges),” Cleverley & Associates says. The organization’s Top 100 and Five-Star Hospitals operate with “a high degree of community value,” says James Cleverly, one of the authors of the report.
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