Two Oregon hospitals — Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center and Adventist Health Portland — are within the top 20 most socially responsible hospitals in the country, according to a new report by the Lown Institute. St. Charles Madras hospital in Oregon is the third most racially inclusive hospital in the country, said the Lown Institute.
The Lown Institute is a nonpartisan health care think tank who “believes a radically better American health system is possible.” Its hospital index is the first ranking system to define standards for hospital social responsibility by “examining performance across health outcomes, value, and equity.”
The Lown Institute recently released rankings on the most socially responsible and racially inclusive hospitals from around the country. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, said:
“Our communities deserve socially responsible hospitals — and the ones at the top of our list set a great example.”
Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center placed eighth on the list while Adventist Health Portland stood at fifteenth. St. Charles Madras placed third on the racially inclusive list.
The social responsibility list ranks 3,010 hospitals nationally based on 54 metrics across the categories of equity outcomes, and values. Some of the metrics include pay equity, inclusivity, clinical outcomes, and avoiding overdose. A new metric — cost efficiency — evaluates how well hospitals achieve low mortality rates at a low cost.
The Lown Institute said about half of the U.S. News & World Report’s top honor roll hospitals failed to place within the top third of the social responsibility list. Those hospitals mainly lacked equity.
The racial inclusivity list ranks over 3,200 hospitals to “assess their success at serving the people of color living in their communities.” In their methodology section, the Lown Institute said:
“Each hospital’s racial inclusivity score shows how the demographics of the hospitals’ community area (who the hospital could serve) compare to their actual patient population (who the hospital does serve).”
The rankings assessed how well the Medicare population matched with the demographics of the hospital’s surrounding community.
The Lown Institute said among the U.S. News & World Report’s top honor roll hospitals, eleven ranked in the bottom third for racial inclusivity and five hospitals ranked in the top third.