By Mitch Work, MPA, FHIMSS, and Chuck Appleby

When your vision is to become a “high reliability” organization in healthcare like those in the nuclear power and commercial airline industries, you’ve set the bar at a height no health system has yet reached. Add a burgeoning uninsured population with diminishing reimbursement in one of the most competitive health marketplaces in the nation and, well, “Houston, we may have a problem.” Memorial Hermann Health System—a Houston-based integrated delivery system with 12 hospitals and more than 20,000 employees serving a 115-mile-diameter region centered on the metro area—has not only set such a bar, its exemplary record in patient safety and clinical quality makes it a good bet to reach it.

Press Ganey Associates, Inc., a recognized leader in health care performance improvement, has released a new research study indicating hospitals that perform better on patient experience of care measures have lower patient readmission rates.