May 1, 2006 - Press Release
Lexington Memorial Hospital was named May 1, 2006 one of the nation’s top performance improvement leader hospitals by Evanston, Illinois based Solucient R, the nation’s leading source of healthcare information products.

Lexington Memorial and its senior management team were recognized for being one of a hundred hospitals making the greatest progress in improving hospital-wide performance over
five years (2000-2004). These organizations have met national benchmarks for consistent improvement in clinical outcomes, safety, hospital efficiency, financial stability and growth.

Findings from the third edition of Solucient’s 100 Top HospitalsR: Performance Improvement
Leaders appear in the May 1, 2006 issue of Modern Healthcare magazine. Only four North Carolina hospitals made Solucient’s prestigious list. In addition to Lexington Memorial these
hospitals are Spruce Pine Community Hospital in Spruce Pine, Rutherford Hospital in Rutherfordton, and High Point Regional Hospital in High Point.

“To be named as one of Solucient’s Top 100 Hospitals in Performance Improvement is an honor of profound significance,” said John Cashion, President of Lexington Memorial Hospital. “But more important than winning a national award is the reaffirmation it makes to our patients that Lexington Memorial is committed on all levels to providing quality medical care in a caring, compassionate manner.” Cashion has often commented that he would stack the expertise and professionalism of the hospital’s medical staff and employees against that of any other hospital. “I’ve always said they are second to none,” he said.

Lexington Memorial is a not-for-profit, privately owned facility with 94 licensed acute care beds. Its medical staff includes physicians who represent more than 20 medical specialties. The hospital offers a comprehensive listing of inpatient and outpatient services. It also operates a public, forprofit pharmacy, seven hospital owned physician practices and a home health agency.

“Five years of steady, well-aligned improvement means that these 100 Performance Improvement (PI) Leaders have enormously increased the value they provide their communities,” said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president, performance improvement & 100 Top programs, Center for Healthcare Improvement at Solucient.

Solucient’s 100 Top Hospitals: Performance Improvement Leaders study analyzes acute care
hospitals nationwide using detailed empirical performance data from years 2000 through 2004,
including publicly available Medicare MedPAR data, Medicare cost reports, and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) outpatient data. Facilities from across the nation recognized on the PI Leader list are represented across five hospital classes:

Major Teaching - 15
Teaching - 25
Large Community (250+ beds) - 20
Medium Community (100 to 249 beds) - 20
Small Community (25 to 99 beds) - 20

The study looked at all U.S. hospitals licensed to treat Medicare patients. Nine performance
measures were examined at each hospital: risk-adjusted mortality index, risk adjusted complications index, risk-adjusted patient safety index, average length of stay, expenses, profitability, cash-to-debt ratio, growth in patient volume, and tangible assets.