Case Study: Regional Medical Center of Orangeburg and Calhoun Counties achieves $8M savings and improved outcomes with Truven Health Analytics' CareDiscovery

Hospitalist Clinical Process Improvements Save $8 Million and Improve Outcomes

Regional Medical Center of Orangeburg and Calhoun Counties (RMC), an acute-care regional hospital in Orangeburg, SC, was facing higher-than-desired patient mortality, longer lengths of stay, rising per-hospitalization costs and below-benchmark quality scores. Leadership traced the issues to wide variation in physician practice, inconsistent adherence to clinical standards, critical-care complications, poor documentation and communication, limited use of data, and heavy reliance on locum tenens.

RMC focused on its hospitalist program using Truven Health Analytics’ CareDiscovery and Quality Measures to benchmark severity-adjusted DRGs, standardize care (sepsis, ventilator-associated pneumonia, catheter-related infections), create multidisciplinary committees and order sets, and align physician incentives with core-measure compliance. Results included a 39% reduction in mortality (74 lives saved), 20% shorter length of stay ($1.3M savings), a 0.2 improvement in case-mix index ($3M), more than $5M in DRG-related staff resource savings, $8M total savings, better core-measure performance and recognition with a Truven Healthcare Advantage Award.

Regional Medical Center

Brian Kendall

Medical Director, Hospitalist Service