News Releases

May 5, 2006
West Georgia Health System has been selected for the 2005 Solucient 100 Top Hospitals® Performance Improvement Leaders award.

WGHS and its senior management team were recognized for being one of 100 hospitals making the greatest progress in improving hospital-wide performance over five years (2000-2004). These organizations have set national benchmarks for consistent improvement in clinical outcomes, safety, hospital efficiency, financial stability and growth. 

“Solucient’s 100 Top Hospitals® Performance Improvement Leaders study is designed to identify hospital leaders – CEOs, executive teams and boards – that have instilled a true culture of performance improvement across their organization over five consecutive years,” says Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for Performance Improvement and 100 Top Programs, Center of Healthcare Improvement at Solucient.  “Performance Improvement Leaders, as shown by objective statistical national comparisons, have led their organizations to improve hospital-wide performance consistently, year-over-year, at a substantially faster rate than peers across the U.S.”

Using publicly available Medicare cost reports, MedPAR data, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services outpatient data, the study examined 9 performance measures at each hospital: risk-adjusted mortality and complications, average length of stay, expenses, profitability, cash-to-debt ratio, growth in patient volume, tangible assets, and risk-adjusted patient safety index.

“This is exciting news for us,” says WGHS President/CEO Jerry Fulks. “Over the past five years we have working toward changing the culture within our health system. We have created several teams, whose members have developed a number of initiatives to improve our clinical and business performance. Our hard work has come to fruition, and I am extremely proud of the commitment that our employees, physicians, and Board of Trustees have demonstrated in working to improve the care we deliver to our patients and the stewardship we offer to our community.”