Last year, the Lown Institute, a Brookline, Mass.-based nonpartisan healthcare think tank, broke new ground with the release of the Lown Hospitals Index that includes metrics such as racial inclusivity, pay equity and community benefit spending. The institute is now releasing updated 2021 results for the full index starting with the May 4 announcement of the top hospitals in the U.S. for avoiding overuse of low-value tests and procedures.
"What we're trying to show is the hospitals at the top of our list are showing that it can be done. It is quite possible. So, for us the rationale for doing this is to show by example what can be done and then participate in what needs to be a broader movement to have American healthcare to move in that direction. It's only when we're able to do that will we be able to solve the deeper problems in healthcare, including affordability," said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute.
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Hundreds of thousands of tests and procedures are unnecessary, according to recent analyses from health care think tank the Lown Institute.
Using a Medicare claims database between 2016 and 2018, the institute ranked 3,100 U.S. hospitals based on their likelihood of ordering unnecessary tests or procedures such as coronary stents for stable heart disease.
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Overuse of unnecessary healthcare services was most common among for-profit hospitals, nonteaching hospitals and those located in the southern U.S., according to a new review of Medicare claims conducted by the Lown Institute.
The study found more than 1.3 million low-value tests and procedures delivered by 3,351 U.S. hospitals between Jan. 1, 2015, and Dec. 31, 2017—a rate of one such unnecessary service delivered to an older adult every 80 seconds.
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More than 1 million tests and procedures that Medicare patients received in hospitals over a three-year period were likely not needed, according to an analysis released today.
Most of the top performing hospitals in the Lown Institute Hospital Index are not from large, well-known health systems that appear on the annual rankings of U.S. News and World Report—in fact, only Cleveland Clinic, which ranked 58th on the Lown list, is on the U.S. News honor roll, according to the a statement on findings.
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