Top Hospitals Save 331,000 Lives, $15.1 Billion in 2025

Premier, a prominent healthcare performance improvement company, has unveiled its 100 Top Hospitals for 2025, acknowledging outstanding performers across five categories: Major Teaching Hospitals, Teaching Hospitals, Top Large Community Hospitals, Top Medium Community Hospitals, and Top Small Community Hospitals. The list, published in Fortune, underscores hospitals that have exhibited exceptional performance in various metrics, including patient outcomes, operational efficiency, and cost management.

Among the top teaching hospitals featured are HCA HealthONE Rose, HCA HealthONE Sky Ridge, HCA HealthONE Aurora, and HCA HealthONE Swedish. These hospitals have been recognized for their commitment to excellence in patient care and their dedication to improving healthcare outcomes. The 100 Top Hospitals program, which has been running for 30 years, aims to inspire hospital and health system leaders to pursue higher performance and deliver added value to the communities they serve.

Southern Hills Hospital & Medical Center in Las Vegas has been recognized as one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals in the teaching category for the fourth consecutive year. The hospital's Chief Executive Officer, Alexis Mussi, expressed pride in the recognition, stating that it reflects the hospital's unwavering commitment to excellence in patient care and the dedication of its entire team. The hospital's consistent recognition at the national level reaffirms its efforts in patient safety and quality care.

The analysis found that the top performers of the 100 Top Hospitals program delivered better outcomes while operating more efficiently and at a lower cost compared to peer hospitals. Specifically, the top performers had 39 percent fewer inpatient deaths, 26.5 percent fewer patients with complications, 32 percent fewer healthcare-associated infections, 18 percent lower inpatient expense per discharge, and a 0.4-day shorter average length of stay. Additionally, top-performing hospitals had a better patient experience, with a top-box Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) score of 73 percent versus 68 percent at peer hospitals.

These outcomes add up to meaningful differences. If all hospitals operated at the level of this year’s top performers, more than 331,000 additional lives could have been saved, over 611,000 additional patients could have been complication-free, and more than $15.1 billion in inpatient costs could have been saved for the 2025 study year. This analysis is based on Medicare patients included in this study. If the same standards were applied to all inpatients, the impact could have been even greater.

The 100 Top Hospitals program aims to inspire hospital and health system leaders to strive for higher performance and provide added value to the communities they serve. These measurements transparently help health system leaders compare their performance to that of their competitors by using objective, reliable, and significant indicators of operational excellence. The program's annual studies are designed to recognize the nation's highest-performing hospitals and encourage others to follow their lead in delivering exceptional patient care.