The MetroHealth hospital system has ranked 15th on a newly released list of the nation’s most socially responsible hospitals.
The Lown Institute conducted the study. That’s the Massachusetts-based think tank that has repeatedly demonstrated the “Fair Share Deficit” of hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic, which makes hundreds of millions more dollars each year on tax exemptions than it spends on the community.
In the current study, the Lown Institute surveyed 3,600+ American hospitals and found that only 66 of them earned top marks, (“A” grades, on their scale), across metrics related to health equity, value and outcomes.
The Lown Institute says it used publicly available data from Medicare claims, CMS hospital cost reports, IRS 990 forms, and other sources to rank hospitals across its social responsibility categories, which include things like pay equity among the hospital’s personnel, cost efficiency for patients and clinical outcomes.
MetroHealth was the only Ohio hospital to make the cut.
“Citizens put their lives and billions of tax dollars in the hands of America’s hospitals,” said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, in a press release announcing the findings. “We believe communities should have high expectations and the most socially responsible institutions should be lifted up as models for the system.”
Adventist Health Howard Hospital in Willits, California; Duke Regional Hospital in Durham, North Carolina; and Tristar Horizon Medical Center in Dickson, Tennessee were the three top-ranked hospitals on the list.
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This article appears in Jun 15-28, 2022.
