EAST LIVERPOOL — East Liverpool City Hospital was recently identified as one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals according to an independent quality analysis provided by Premier Inc.

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 Premier’s 100 Top Hospitals program is to inspire hospital and health system leaders to pursue higher performance and deliver added value to patients and communities. Participation in the study is not application-based, and award winners do not pay to market their honor.

“At East Liverpool City Hospital, we take immense pride in providing outstanding healthcare services to our patients and the community we serve. This award demonstrates the commitment and collaboration between ELCH and the medical staff to ensure patients receive the highest standard of care. Our healthcare team’s focus is to continuously improve upon the care they provide for our patients.” said Stephanie Conn, president and CEO of East Liverpool City Hospital.

East Liverpool City Hospital has earned a Leapfrog safety grade of “A” from 2018 to 2025 and is the only hospital in the region to receive the Grade A award which echoes East Liverpool City Hospital’s commitment to delivering safe, high-quality care. East Liverpool City Hospital was awarded the only five-star hospital award in 2023, and 2024, from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the Ohio Valley, consisting of Columbiana, Jefferson, Harrison, and Belmont counties in Ohio and Marshall, Brooke, Hancock, and Ohio counties in West Virginia.

Performance of Facilities on Premier’s 100 Top Hospitals Program List

This year’s analysis compared the study’s top performing hospitals to a peer group of similar hospitals and found that the 100 Top Hospitals delivered better outcomes while operating more efficiently. Compared to their peers, this year’s top performers achieved:

— 39 percent fewer inpatient deaths than peer hospitals.

— 26.5 percent fewer patients with complications.

— 32 percent fewer healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

— 18 percent lower inpatient expense per discharge.

— 0.4-day shorter average length of stay.

— A better patient experience at top performing hospitals compared to the remaining peer hospitals, with a top-box Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) score of 73 percent versus 68 percent at peer hospitals.

These outcomes add up to meaningful differences. According to the study’s analysis, if all hospitals operated at the level of this year’s top performers, more than 331,000 additional lives could have been saved, over 611,000 additional patients could have been complication-free and more than $15.1 billion in inpatient costs could have been saved for the 2025 study year.

This analysis is based on Medicare patients included in this study. If the same standards were applied to all inpatients, the impact could have been even greater.

“Premier’s 100 Top Hospitals program recognizes the dedication of our nation’s top hospitals to consistently deliver high-quality care while working to continuously improve quality, patient experience and operational efficiency,” said David Zito, Premier’s president, Performance Services. “The program’s transparent, non-biased and actionable data helps set benchmarks for hospitals nationwide and enables leaders to make data-driven decisions that benefit patients and the communities we serve. East Liverpool City Hospital excels across key performance indicators, which can directly lead to higher quality patient outcomes, with fewer readmissions and complications.”

Premier’s 100 Top Hospitals program focuses on short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of patients. Researchers evaluated 2,599 short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals and health systems. All research was based on the following public data sets: Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) data, and data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Care Compare website. For complete methodology details, please review the study here.

Eligible hospitals are ranked for performance across nine measures within five domains.

Final rank is determined based on performance for all individual measures. To allow for fair comparison, hospitals are stratified and then ranked within five separate peer groups with a pre-determined number of high-performing hospitals: major teaching hospitals (20 facilities), teaching hospitals (20 facilities), large community hospitals (20 facilities), medium community hospitals (20 facilities) and small community hospitals (20 facilities).

Methodology for Selecting Everest Award Recipients

The methodology for selecting Everest Award winners can be summarized in three main steps:

— Identify the annual 100 Top Hospitals award benchmark hospitals using a balanced scorecard of performance measures using the most current data available (2023 at the time of this study).

— Identify hospitals that have shown the fastest, most consistent improvement rates on the same balanced scorecard of performance measures across five years (2019 -2023).

— Hospitals that ranked in the top 100 on both lists are recognized with the Everest Award.

Combining these methodologies yields a select group of Everest Award recipients. The number of hospitals will vary every year, based solely on performance.