Leominster hospital tops state when factoring in equal pay, racial inclusivity and charitable work

Photo | Grant Welker UMass Memorial Health Care's HealthAlliance campus in Leominster

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In Massachusetts, it's all but impossible to top any hospital ranking if you're not Massachusetts General Hospital or Boston Children's Hospital.

UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital in Leominster, however, has topped those facilities — which are regularly ranked as among the best in the country — and every other in Massachusetts in a new ranking by the Lown Institute weighing civic leadership and value along with other standard hospital-ranking measures, such as mortality and readmission rates.

The Leominster hospital was also ranked eighth nationally by the Brookline-based institute, a healthcare think tank.

Among 55 hospitals ranked in Massachusetts, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester landed third and Milford Regional Medical Center was seventh. Marlborough Hospital was ninth and Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester was 17th.

Civic leadership included pay equity between hospital executives and workers, racial inclusivity, and the hospital's investment in community health, including charitable work. More traditional hospital ranking measures were also included, such as clinical outcomes, patient safety and patient satisfaction.

UMass Memorial Health Care President and CEO Eric Dickson, whose hospitals include HealthAlliance, UMass Memorial Medical Center and Marlborough Hospital, praised the results.

"This is the only rating system we have seen that evaluates the socio-economic class of patients that a health system cares for, which seems to level the playing field for safety net systems like ours that usually are penalized in other rankings for caring for underserved populations," Dickson said in a staff memo.