NCH was named one of America’s 50 Best Hospitals for 2025 by Healthgrades, placing it in the top 1% of U.S. hospitals for care excellence based on patient outcomes. It is also the only hospital nationwide to earn Healthgrades’ highest recognition in three areas: overall clinical excellence, cardiac care and orthopedic surgery.
“One of the big changes we made was focusing on culture. From day one, we talked about making NCH a place where doctors liked to practice,” Mr. Hiltz told Becker’s of his early conversations with the board. “The doctors were at the table, engaged in decision-making.”
Another key factor is NCH’s leadership structure. Instead of a single chief medical officer, the system has five part-time leaders, all practicing physicians. Each hospital campus has a chief surgical officer and a chief medical officer, with an ambulatory chief medical officer for the system.
“We believe that leadership and developing our team is key to the quality journey,” Mr. Hiltz said. To that end, NCH launched a physician leadership academy with a cohort of about 20 physicians and a “forum of excellence” program to support emerging leaders. As a result, employee engagement and patient satisfaction scores have reached record highs, he said.
Strategic partnerships have also played a role in NCH’s success, each focused on elevating quality and enhancing patient experience, including its partnership with ProScan Imaging, Mr. Hiltz said. They are all made possible through community support and philanthropy. “As we’ve raised the standards of quality, our philanthropic support has increased dramatically,” he said.
It is collaborating with New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery and building a new orthopedic hospital, which will open in April. It is also collaborating with Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine to develop a comprehensive cancer service line.
“My advice to other leaders is, first and foremost, engage the doctors,” Mr. Hiltz said. “If you look across this country, doctors are feeling very disenfranchised, very much ignored.”
One way NCH does this is by including front-line clinicians at board meetings. It is helpful to have a board that “likes to hear from clinicians and wants to know what they need to be successful,” he said.
“The key is that we have a very engaged board,” Mr. Hiltz said. “Every meeting, they start with quality and end with quality. They want us to benchmark ourselves not against local competition, but against the best in the industry.”
