City with Largest Number of Adventist Hospitals Rates Best in National Evaluation of Hospital Care
by AT News Team
The Dayton (Ohio) metropolitan area tops the national ranking of hospitals with low death rates, according to a report from the health care ratings firm, Health Grades, Inc. With an overall inpatient mortality rate of 4.68 percent, Dayton rated better than any other metropolitan area in the United States in the company’s 2013 report, released Tuesday (February 19).
Dayton has a larger proportion of hospitals affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church than any other metropolitan area in America. Eight of the 23 hospitals in the metro area or 35 percent are part of the Kettering Health Network (KHN) which is controlled by the denomination’s Columbia Union Conference. Orlando, Florida, is better known because it is the location of the headquarters of the largest Adventist health care organization, the Adventist Health System (AHS) with hospitals throughout the state and across the South and Midwest. But only seven of the 32 hospitals in the Orlando metropolitan area (22 percent) are part of AHS.
Unlike many of the awards and rating systems that hospitals announce regularly, this study was not voluntary. The rankings in this study were taken from public records of the 4,500 hospitals across the country in Medicare reports. “Hospitals cannot choose to participate or not participate,” Dr. Archelle Georgiou, a medical advisor to Health Grades, Inc., told the Dayton Daily News.
One of the Adventist hospitals in Dayton ranked among the top 50 hospitals in the country based on low rates of complications and death across 27 illnesses and procedures over the last seven years. Grandview Medical Center, the KHN facility in the inner city of Dayton, achieved this remarkable record. Richard Haas, president of Grandview, told the newspaper that this is the result of “years of dedication in applying evidence-based best practices.”
The Dayton metropolitan area has a population just under one million, while the Orlando metro area has a population of 2.1 million. “People in the Midwest generally have better health than people in the South,” a health planning official told Adventist Today. “Nonetheless, I think that Adventist concepts about health have made a real contribution in this area.”
Dayton has 11 Adventist churches and a church school that includes 12 grades plus a Kindergarten and preschool. KHN operates a college as well as hospitals and community clinics. Two of the churches also operate child care centers and Good Neighbor House, the community service agency of the Adventist churches in the area, is one of the major providers of health and social services for the poor.
It is confusing to most Adventists that all Adventist hospitals are not
directly under the SDA organization. Please clarify those that are directly under the administration of the G.C. and those that merely carry the Adventist name.
Does "Adventist Health Systems" mean only that they are operated individually or just how is this connection? Is Adventist Health Systems West an independent entity?
As far as I know, none of the "SDA" hospitals in the USA are are under any control of the GC other than to maintain the link with the church, the boards usually have some union/conference/GC officers on the board. Everything was separated in the 1980's. GC afraid that hospital malpractice suits would bring the whole church down so legally separated. Not much has ever been said. I've suggested several times that some of our investigative journalists need to explore the topic.
Does "affiliated hospital" have the same meaning as an individual is "affiliated" with the SDA church? Surely, there are many that do not understand the affiliation.
In answer to Elaine's question, the health systems in North America are under the control of the union conferences. For example, Adventist Health System, headquartered in Orlando, manages all the hospitals located in the territories of the Lake, Mid-America, Southwestern and Southern Unions. The Executive Committees of the four Unions together form the constituency of AHS. In that role, they approve all the legal documents of AHS and appoint the Board of Directors. The union presidents and treasurers serve on the Board along with several conference presidents as well as lay representatives from the four Unions. So AHS is controlled by the four unions as to legal structure and governance. The GC is not in the picture. There are some variations from that pattern with some of the other Adventist systems, but the net result is about the same.
Edward,
Thank you for clarifying this info about the Adventist Health Systems.