Essential hospitals face deep pressures, yet their work remains critical. At association member University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB Health), in Galveston, Texas, clinical data is the foundation of an effort to drive quality improvement. Using Vizient’s Quality and Accountability Ranking as a framework, UTMB Health turned data into action.
For years, UTMB Health participated in Vizient’s Clinical Data Base (CDB), a resource that allows hospitals and health systems to benchmark themselves across domains such as safety, mortality, patient-centeredness, and efficiency. The CDB, developed in the 1980s for academic medical centers to share outcomes data and best practices, has grown into the nation’s definitive analytics platform for hospital performance and improvement. It features high-quality, transparent data on patient outcomes—such as mortality, length of stay, complications, and readmissions—from more than 1,300 hospital facilities in all 50 states. The CDB features clinical benchmarking tools like dashboards and customizable reports so providers can quickly assess performance and make data-driven decisions.
In 2016, UTMB Health leaders did exactly that. Using the Vizient® Quality and Accountability Ranking, which is built on CDB data, the system embarked on an ambitious quality improvement initiative that it dubbed “Best Care.” UTMB established an audacious goal: to rank among the nation’s top 20 academic medical centers on the Quality and Accountability Ranking within two years.
Under Best Care, leaders shared stories from patients and staff to build momentum. In weekly educational sessions, teams from the bedside to the boardroom learned about the objectives and the path forward. The results were rapid and dramatic. By 2017, UTMB Health surged 67 spots in the Quality and Accountability Ranking, moving from No. 76 to No. 9. Within a year, it climbed to No. 4, sustaining a top 10 position through 2019. These gains reflected a cultural shift toward accountability, shared learning, and continuous improvement.
Resilience During Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic tested every health system. The focus shifted to survival as hospitals nationwide confronted labor shortages and retention while simultaneously treating patients in an unprecedented public health emergency. UTMB Health’s ranking temporarily fell, but its commitment to patients remained. By 2022, as COVID patient volumes reduced, leaders reignited the system’s quality focus through its “Journey to Zero” initiative, aiming for zero preventable safety events and minimizing unavoidable ones.
The Journey to Zero approach combined rigorous data use with front-line leadership:
- Infection control: Critical care nurse manager Rachel Ussery, DNP, led daily audits of intensive care unit patients’ lines and catheters, ensuring best practices were followed. This contributed to cutting central line–associated bloodstream infections nearly in half, from 69 to 35 cases in one year.
- Communication standardization: UTMB implemented the AIDET process—acknowledge, identify, discuss, explain, thank—across all campuses, improving patient experience through consistent interactions.
- Dedicated analytics: A data analyst supported departments with regular reports on trends and variances, helping teams see their progress and adjust strategies in real time. By monitoring progress over time, the team bought into using the CDB and the Quality and Accountability Ranking to improve care quality.
Recognizing and Sustaining Progress
Leadership reinforced improvements by celebrating team successes with quarterly awards, sustaining enthusiasm and accountability. As of 2023, UTMB Health ranked No. 24 among 116 comprehensive academic medical centers, reflecting the ongoing nature of its transformation journey. In pediatric hospital services, UTMB ranked No. 7 out of 96.
“When you look back at what has happened at UTMB over the past five years, it’s quite transformational,” says Gulshan Sharma, MD, MPH, senior vice president and chief medical and clinical innovation officer at UTMB. “It’s all about patient care. Our patients deserve it, and we owe it to them.”
UTMB Health’s story illustrates how essential hospitals can harness clinical data to overcome systemic challenges, engage staff at every level and improve outcomes for patients who face social and economic barriers to care. By embedding data-informed practices into culture and operations, essential hospitals can drive lasting transformation even in the face of unprecedented crises.
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