(Providence, RI)--The Lifespan Health System has been honored as one of the 2009 Top 100 Integrated Health Networks in the United States. The selection process rates health care networks on their performance level and degree of integration in eight categories and 33 areas, such as services & access, contractual capabilities, outpatient utilization, integration, integrated technology, hospital utilization, financial stability and physician participation.

Lifespan, rated at 94th, was one of only six integrated health networks in New England to be included in the Top 100. Lifespan President and CEO George Vecchione said, "We are pleased to receive this distinction which recognizes our continued progress toward integrating safety, quality and continued financial stability, to better care for our patients."

Lifespan has been included on the Top 100 list six times in prior years by SDI, a data and analytics firm, which has been tracking integrated health networks and looking at critical success factors since 1994. The survey was previously performed by Verispan, which was acquired by SDI last year.

Lifespan (www.lifespan.org ) is a not-for-profit health care system based in Providence, RI. Formed in 1994, Lifespan includes three teaching hospitals of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University: Rhode Island Hospital and its Hasbro Children's Hospital; The Miriam Hospital; and Bradley Hospital, the nation's first psychiatric hospital for children. Lifespan also includes Newport Hospital, a community-based hospital in Newport, RI. Lifespan hospitals combined received more than $66 million in research funding in fiscal 2007. All Lifespan-affiliated hospitals are charitable organizations that depend on support from the community to provide programs and services.

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