For More Information: Judy Curtis, Manager Media and Community Relations 254-724-7758 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 18, 2008

Scott & White named among top 15 teaching hospitals in U.S.

- Central Texans near one of nation’s best hospitals -

TEMPLE, Texas – For the fifth year in a row, Scott & White has been ranked among the top 100 hospitals by one of nation’s key healthcare rating groups. What’s more, Scott & White is one of only two major teaching hospitals in Texas as well as the only healthcare institution in Central Texas to make the prestigious Thomson Healthcare’s 100 Top Hospitals list for 2007.

This year’s winners include Beth Isreal (Boston), University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers (Ann Arbor), and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville) in the major teaching hospitals category.

“Once again, we are proud that we have been placed in the company of some of the country’s premier medical institutions,” says Scott & White President and CEO Dr. Alfred Knight. “We work hard to maintain the kind of quality, safety and financial performance that will assure our patients access to the finest care available, whether they live in Central Texas or mid-America.”

According to the Thomson 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study, Scott & White was chosen from more than 3,000 hospitals in the U.S. for its record on safety, quality and efficiency.

“Central Texas can be enormously proud to have a 100 Top Hospital because these hospitals are – above all – very well run organizations,” said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president, performance improvement and 100 top programs at Thomson Heatlhcare.

The Thomson researchers evaluated hospitals based on many measures including:

• Mortality figures, adjusted for risk, which were six percent lower among the winning hospitals
• Number of complications, again adjusted for the risk inherent in the procedure or patient condition, and which were 2.7 percent lower than other healthcare institutions.
• The effectiveness of so-called evidence based processes, which are procedures, resources and information that help health professionals apply evidence from research to care for individual patients.
• The average length of stay which, at 4.93 days, is ten percent lower than the national average
• Medical costs, found to be 13.2 percent below most other hospitals.

Thomson also measured the quality of overall patient care, and not solely physician performance. ”For the patient, this means the hospital is significantly more likely to provide dependable, quality care because doing the right thing at the right time matters to everyone in the hospital – not just doctors,” said Chenoweth.

According to Thomson if all hospitals operated like Scott & White and the other top-tier institutions, among Medicare patients alone, more than 123,000 additional lives would be saved; close to 139,000 other patients would avoid complications; total medical costs would be $6.2 billion less; and the average patient stay would be cut by more than half a day.

Only six other Texas hospitals were named in the Thomson list, and Scott & White was the only Texas-based healthcare institution named for the fifth time in a row in a decade. “This achievement makes it clear that Scott & White is the hub of great medicine, top-notch patient care, and innovative research,” said Knight.

The 2007 winners in the Thomson study were announced in the March 17 issue of Modern Healthcare magazine.

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