Lakeview Hospital was named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals by Thomson Healthcare, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of healthcare. This is the third time Lakeview Hospital has been recognized with this honor since 2003. The award recognizes hospitals that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, financial performance, and efficiency.

Lakeview Hospital is the only metro area hospital to receive this honor for 2007, and one of only two hospitals in the state of Minnesota. “We are very excited to win this prestigious award for three of the last four years,” said Curt Geissler, president of Lakeview Hospital. “This award, in conjunction with the many others we receive, is evidence that Lakeview’s commitment to quality and patient satisfaction is recognized at the national level. I am very proud of and thankful for our dedicated employees, medical staff and volunteers who make Lakeview Hospital one of the top community hospitals in Minnesota and in the nation.”

The 2007 Thomson 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study appears in the March 17 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine. A winning hospital ranks above the top 90 percent on hospital-wide performance compared to its national peers. The study uses a balanced scorecard approach and scores hospitals according to eight key organization-wide measures: risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, patient safety composite, average core measures scores, severity-adjusted average length of stay, expense per adjusted discharge, profit from operations and cash-to-debt ratio.

According to the study, the highest performance levels in patient safety were achieved by the 100 hospitals in the study that delivered the highest balanced performance across quality, efficiency, and financial stability. If all hospitals had performed at the level of these leading hospitals on the eight patient safety measures studied, they would have saved $253 million and 7,914 lives during the time period the study examined.

More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com.