WellStar Health System Named as a “Top 100 Most Highly Integrated Healthcare Network” in U.S.

SDI, a leading healthcare information company, recently ranked WellStar as one of the top 100 health systems in its 14th annual “100 Most Highly Rated Integrated Healthcare Networks (IHN 100©).” The rating is based on SDI's IHN Rating System TM, which evaluates each network's ability to operate as a unified organization in each of eight categories: integration, integrated technology, contractual capabilities, outpatient utilization, financial stability, services and access, hospital utilization and physicians. WellStar moved up four spots from last year’s ranking to ninth, claiming a spot in the top 10 for the first time. WellStar is the only health system from Georgia to make the list. This year’s IHN 100© was published in the February issue of Modern Healthcare, a trade publication for the healthcare industry.

“Our integration and alignment strategy has been critically important to WellStar’s success in achieving our goals of improving quality and safety, patient satisfaction and eliminating much of the fragmentation in healthcare services that patients' experience,” said Jim Budzinski, Interim President & CEO for WellStar Health System. “Examples of this include our award winning efforts to eliminate infections at our hospitals and our top 10 performance in outpatient satisfaction. This strategy will continue to be important to our future success of achieving our vision of delivering world-class healthcare, as we implement our electronic health records throughout our system and prepare for the future environment of Accountable Care Organizations.”

The 2011 edition identified the top 100 IHNs out of the 576 non-specialty, local and regional networks in the United States that meet critical success factors. In addition to the top 100, SDI publishes the Best of the Rest, a regional ranking of IHNs that did well but could not break into the top 100.

For more information on SDI and to see the entire list of the top 100 IHN networks, please visit the IHN information page at www.sdihealth.com.