Which hospitals have the best corporate social responsibility?
The Lown Institute's data showed that the most socially responsible hospitals typically have lower CEO pay to enable better health equity, value and outcomes.
The Lown Institute is recognizing 125 hospitals nationwide for their performance on health equity, value and outcomes, honoring these for this corporate social responsibility in healthcare.
"These hospitals show that no matter how tough the environment gets, putting patients and communities first is always possible," Vikas Saini, M.D., president of the Lown Institute, said in a press release. "Those returning to the list prove that equitable, high-value care doesn't have to be rare; it's a standard hospitals can uphold year after year."
The list was culled from an assessment of more than 2,700 hospitals in the country, measuring more than 50 metrics on health equity, value and clinical outcomes. According to the Lown Institute, around half of the 125 "Honor Roll" recipients are receiving that designation for at least the second year in a row.
The top 10 acute care hospitals for health equity, value and outcomes include the following:
- Duke Regional Hospital (Durham, N.C.).
- Fort Loudoun Medical Center (Lenoir City, T.N..).
- Baylor Scott & White Medical Center - Pflugerville (Pflugerville, T.X.).
- Denver Health Main Campus (Denver, C.O.).
- Methodist Medical Center (Oak Ridge, T.N.).
- Prisma Health Baptist Hospital (Columbia, S.C.).
- TriStar Horizon Medical Center (Dickson, T.N.).
- Sharon Hospital (Sharon, C.T.).
- Inspira Medical Center Vineland (Vineland, N.J.).
- Southern California Hospital at Hollywood (Los Angeles, C.A.).
Notably, Honor Roll hospitals hail from all over the country. While the expected large health systems and academic medical centers populate the list, there are also appearances from smaller, rural hospitals that are less resourced. The Lown Institute said this demonstrates that providing high-quality, equitable and socially responsible care does not have the come with a high price tag.
That said, there was another key commonality across the Honor Roll hospitals regardless of geography: lower-than-average CEO pay.
With CEO pay climbing up into the millions at some nonprofit health systems, this is notable. Hospitals and health systems with lower compensation rates for their chief executives might be able to funnel more resources into social responsibility, including their obligations for community care as part of their nonprofit status.
U.S. News ranked hospitals perform poorly on health equity
The Lown Institute's analysis also compared the performance of its own Honor Roll hospitals with those getting top marks from U.S. News and World Reports, whose renowned hospital lists serve as a gold standard for quality ratings.
Indeed, the top performers on the U.S. News and World Reports lists do perform well in key areas such as value and outcomes. Most rated an A or B grade on the Lown Institute's scale.
However, they lagged in health equity. Cs and Ds were common in the health equity category, although Rush University Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital all achieved As in health equity.
The lower performance in health equity meant many of the top-rated hospitals on the U.S. News and World Reports list saw their scores drop on the Lown Institute's social responsibility scale. Most hospitals got a B on the Lown scale, while five received A grades. This means only five hospitals would have been top performers on both scales, indicating that hospital quality hinges on the metrics being assessed.
Sara Heath has reported news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.
