business
Technically advanced hospitals have better credit
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted May 30, 2011
A report by Fitch Ratings finds that hospitals with advanced information technology systems or quality awards have better credit ratings than other hospitals.
Fitch rated 291 hospitals. Of those, 26% received recognition for excellence in quality of care either from a patient-safety award from HealthGrades, a quality award from the Baldridge Performance Excellence Program, or a top hospital designation from Leapfrog Group. Eight percent of the hospitals achieved stage 6 or stage 7 of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's seven-stage health IT adoption scale.
More than 80% of the hospitals that had a high level of health IT adoption or received a quality award got at least an A- credit rating from Fitch, compared with 67% of overall hospitals studied.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/05/30/bibf0530.htm.












