UK Chandler Hospital Among Top 15 Academic Medical Centers

For the second time in two years, UK is ranked by Thomson Healthcare among the top 15 academic medical centers in the nation for having faster and more consistent organization-wide improvement than most other teaching hospitals.

The new national ranking comes on the heels of U.S. News and World Report's designation last month of UK Chandler Hospital as one of "America's Best Hospitals".

"Our philosophy is that by putting proper systems in place, patients will get the best possible care and the health care system will improve through cutting costs and improving patient outcomes," said Dr. Michael Karpf, UK executive vice president for health affairs.  "Efficiency goes hand-in-hand with quality patient care.  It's through our novel implementation of patient care models and business systems that organizations across the country which rank hospitals, such as Thomson Healthcare and U.S.News & World Report, are taking notice of what's happening at the University of Kentucky."

UK Chandler Hospital's Quality, Safety and Patient Rights program quantitatively defines the hospital's emphasis on improving patient outcomes through very defined measures and goals.

As just one example, roughly one third of patients in the United States experience hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, during their hospital stay, and many of those patients don’t have diabetes or are undiagnosed. Blood sugar levels tend to go higher when a patient is critically ill. Stress hyperglycemia in seriously ill patients worsens outcomes – producing higher medical costs, higher incidence of infection and readmission to the hospital, and higher mortality rates.

UK HealthCare has made a concentrated effort to educate the entire health care team, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and dietitians, and implement guidelines to ensure that hyperglycemic patients don’t fall through the cracks. UK’s Glycemic Control Program is becoming a model in hospitals across the state and beyond, as are similar programs to improve efficiency and patient outcomes.

"I believe we have no choice to be economically relevant, but if we are not committed to quality and safety for our patients, we will not be successful," Karpf said.

Last month, rankings released by U.S.News and World Report placed UK Chandler Hospital among the nation's top hospitals. Only 173 U.S. hospitals made the list of 5,462 hospitals evaluated.  For the first time, three of UK's programs were recognized by the magazine– a reflection of the breadth and depth of care delivered at UK. They are gynecology (27), ear, nose and throat (41) and cancer (46).

UK Chandler Hospital, a facility currently licensed for 473 beds, is experiencing high occupancy. About 1,300 jobs have been added since 2004 at UK Chandler Hospital and the UK College of Medicine, in large part because of the growth of the hospital's patient volumes. Discharges, a measure of inpatient activity at the hospital, have grown by 43 percent during the last four years.  With UK's recent acquisition of UK HealthCare Good Samaritan Hospital, additional growth is anticipated.

Moreover, UK announced last year the creation of a $2.5 billion Medical Campus of the Future that will house the latest in cutting-edge research, education and health care facilities.  UK's Medical Campus of the Future —recently noted by The New York Times as one of the nation's largest health care building projects — brings innovation to the education of students by allowing future professionals such as physicians, dentists, nurses, dietitians, and physical therapists to learn in an integrated fashion.  Leveraging the fact that UK is one of a few in the nation to have the colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Public Health and Health Sciences all on one campus, experts say UK is well-positioned to pursue inter-professional health care education and collaborative research.

Previous Awards

UK HealthCare Named 100 Top Hospital
May 4 , 2006 - UK Chandler Hospital was ranked by "Solucient" as one of the nation's top 15 academic medical centers for 2005. UK HealthCare was recognized in the areas of "Performance Improvement Leader" and "National Benchmarks for Success."

UK HealthCare Among America's Best Hospitals for Ear, Nose and Throat Care
July 11, 2006 - UK Chandler Hospital's ear, nose and throat care services were ranked among the nation's best by “U.S.News & World Report” for 2005.