Piedmont Athens Regional today was identified as one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® according to an independent quality analysis provided by PINC AI™, the technology and services brand of Premier, Inc., and reported by Fortune.

To create the list, an objective, quantitative analysis of publicly available data was conducted to identify the top hospitals in the United States. The primary purpose of the PINC AI™ 100 Top Hospitals® program is to inspire hospital and health system leaders to pursue higher performance and deliver added value to patients and communities. The program leverages transparent, nonbiased data to help inform strategies for sustained performance. Organizations do not apply to participate in the study, and award recipients do not pay to market their honor.

100 Top Hospitals® Program Performance

This year, based on comparisons between the study’s top performers and a peer group of similar hospitals, the analysis found that the top performers of the 100 Top Hospitals® program delivered better outcomes while operating more efficiently and at a lower cost. Compared to peer hospitals, this year’s top performers had:

• 39 percent fewer inpatient deaths than peer hospitals.

• 26.6 percent fewer patients with complications.

• 30.6 percent fewer healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

• A 21.1 percent lower inpatient expense per discharge.

• 0.5-day shorter average length of stay.

• Better reported patient experience scores, with a top-box Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) score of 73 percent versus 67 percent for peer hospitals.

“Hospitals and health systems continue to recognize the vital importance of performance improvement for high-quality patient care, proving value and enabling the innovations that drive healthcare forward,” said Leigh Anderson, Premier’s Chief Operating Officer and the leader of PINC AI™. “The transparent, non-biased and actionable data this study provides helps leaders make informed decisions for change and proves that Piedmont Athens Regional excels across a range of core performance indicators, which can directly lead to significantly higher quality patient outcomes, with fewer readmissions and complications.”