Methodology for the Fortune/PINC AI 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals 2024

Each year, PINC AI™ conducts objective, quantitative research to shine a light on the nation’s highest-performing hospitals, health systems, and cardiovascular service lines, through the PINC AI 100 Top Hospitals® program. The goal of the program is to deliver unbiased, guiding insights that can help all health care organizations focus their improvement initiatives and move toward consistent, sustainable top performance. Organizations do not apply to participate in the study, and award winners do not pay to market their honor. 

The PINC AI 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals™ study is based on quantitative research that uses a balanced scorecard approach, based on publicly available data, to identify the top cardiovascular hospitals in the US. This study focuses on short-term, acute care, nonfederal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of cardiology patients. It includes patients requiring medical management, as well as those who receive invasive or surgical procedures. Because multiple measures are used, a hospital must provide all forms of cardiovascular care, including open heart surgery, to be included in the study. Each patient group is mutually exclusive, by design.

•AMI patients – restricted to nonsurgical patients 
•HF patients – restricted to nonsurgical patients
•CABG patients – includes all ICD- 10-CM procedure codes, principal or secondary in MS-DRGs 231 – 236
•PCI patients – excludes patients with open chest coronary artery angioplasty

For more information, detailed methodologies, and patient group definitions go to www.100tophospitals.com.  Hospitals do not apply for awards, and winners do not pay to market this honor.

Final rank
Final Rank is determined based on performance for all individual measures. Hospitals are ranked within their class definition group. The top 20 final ranked in peer groups CV teaching and teaching and top 10 in community are the benchmark (winner) hospitals.

Hospital measure domains

  • Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) 
  • Heart Failure (HF)
  • Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)
  • Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI)

Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) performance
There are six AMI measures used in the scorecard. Measures include risk-adjusted inpatient mortality, 30-day mortality, 30-day readmissions, severity-adjusted length of stay, wage- and severity-adjusted average cost per case, and 30-day episode payment.

Heart Failure (HF)
There are six HF measures used in the scorecard. Measures include risk-adjusted inpatient mortality, 30-day mortality, 30-day readmissions, severity-adjusted length of stay, wage- and severity-adjusted average cost per case, and 30-day episode payment.

Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)
There are six CABG measures used in the scorecard. Measures include risk-adjusted inpatient mortality, risk-adjusted complications, 30-day mortality, 30-day readmissions, severity-adjusted length of stay, and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost per case.

Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) 
There are four PCI measures used in the scorecard. Measures include risk-adjusted inpatient mortality, risk-adjusted complications, severity-adjusted length of stay, and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost per case.

Stars key:

  • 5 stars (★★★★★) = Hospital performing at top quintile (>80-100%) within their peer group
  • 4 stars (★★★★) = Hospital performing within second quintile (>60-80%) within their peer group
  • 3 stars (★★★) = Hospital performing within third quintile (>40-60%) within their peer group
  • 2 stars (★★) = Hospital performing within fourth quintile (>20-40%) within their peer group
  • 1 star (★) = Hospital performing in the bottom quintile (0-20%) within their peer group

Class definition
Each hospital is defined within a class based on their bed size and teaching status.

Teaching hospitals with cardiovascular residency programs: 288 hospitals (20 winners)
Teaching hospitals without cardiovascular residency programs: 345 hospitals (20 winners)
Community hospitals: 307 hospitals (10 winners)
Total number of in-study: 940 hospitals (50 winners)

PREMIER, PINC AI, 100 TOP HOSPITALS, 15 TOP HEALTH SYSTEMS, and 50 TOP CARDIOVASCULAR HOSPITALS are registered/unregistered trademarks of Premier Healthcare Alliance, L.P. in the United States.