Message from the President

In health care, it’s easy to get distracted: rising costs, lagging reimbursement, dozens and dozens of publicly reported measures, staffing shortages, new competitors nipping at our heels, and always feeling like there is too much to do, and too little time.

It’s not just us, of course. The healthcare industry in this country is under stress.

All those things matter. They matter to each one of us. As leaders, we’re doing everything we can to take care of each other, and to always focus on what matters most.

One of those things that really matters is how well, compared to the rest of the healthcare world, we are doing. In other words, how well do we compare, or benchmark, with healthcare organizations across the state, and across the country.

Those indicators help us know whether we are continuing to take great care of our friends and neighbors.

So, how well are we doing?

In a word, outstanding!

It’s not just me trying to be encouraging. We are, in fact, benchmarking very well.

The Leapfrog Group has been ranking hospitals for Quality and Safety for about 15 years. Spectrum Health Lakeland received an A grade. About two-thirds of all hospitals didn’t make the cut.

Quantros, the folks that produce CareChex, produce a very robust report that compares hospitals and physicians across the country on dozens of quality, safety, complication, mortality, and patient experience measures. The overall ranking of Lakeland is in the top 10% in the country.

You probably recognize the name Truven. That’s the company that provides our operational benchmarking data. They are now part of IBM Watson Health. They are the folks who produce the Top 100 Hospitals list each year. We made the cut in 2017, as one of only 5 health systems in the country to make the list. You probably remember that designation is based on a broad array of clinical, operational, and patient experience measures. It also measures not only performance, but also how fast performance is improved.

Although we missed that Top 100 designation in 2018 by just a little bit, we ranked ahead of 94% of the hospitals and health systems in Michigan.

Nice work, team! You have every right to be very proud!

After all, we are in the business of health and health care. And even in very busy times (like integration, financial recalibration, construction, and all the rest) we have lived up to our mission and vision. We have been true to our values.

Thank you so very much for delivering what really matters most.

If you would like to read more of Message from the President, click here