The Lown Institute Hospitals Index is the first ranking to evaluate cost efficiency for more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals. The Cost Efficiency metric measures how well hospitals achieve great outcomes at a low cost to Medicare.
The Lown Institute analysis found wide variation in cost, even among hospitals of the same type, size, region, and with similar mortality rates. Overall, if all hospitals performed as well as the most cost-efficient hospitals, Medicare would save $8 billion each year.
The study analyzed data from more than 3,000 hospitals, looking at how much Medicare was billed and comparing that to how many patients died, both 30 and 90 days from admission.
Among hospitals with average 30-day mortality rates, costs ranged from $9,000 to $27,000 per patient. The study shows that if all hospitals matched the performance of the country’s most cost-efficient hospitals, there would be $8 billion in Medicare savings each year.
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