2010 PHYSICIAN PARTNERSHIP AWARD WINNER:
   ALTA BATES SUMMIT MEDICAL CENTER

Achieving Breakthroughs in Hospitalist Cost and Quality
Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, an affiliate of Sutter Health based in Berkeley and Oakland, California, is a three-campus 1,094-bed hospital that joined the Crimson Initiative in 2007 to help fulfill a system-wide strategic goal of making real-time performance data accessible to physicians. Vice President of Medical Affairs Dr. John Gentile championed the implementation by making a series of presentations in which he clarified that the data embedded in Crimson was already in the public domain, yet had not previously been available to physicians. Gaining visibility into this data provided the medical staff with an opportunity to understand—and respond to—variation in performance.

Recruiting a cadre of enthusiastic physician leaders from the hospitalist group, Dr. Gentile and his team have integrated the tool into ongoing performance improvement initiatives. Across 2009, the team worked collaboratively with physicians across campuses to identify opportunities and drive significant results, including a 17% reduction in mortality for sepsis patients, a 0.5 day reduction in length of stay, and a 32% decline in 30-day readmissions.