4 hospitals, 12 healthcare companies total dubbed 'most ethical'

Photo of Cleveland Clinic from Wikipedia.

A new list released Monday highlighting the most ethical companies in the world featured four well-known U.S. hospitals and 12 healthcare companies in total.

The Ethisphere Institute, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based consultant and advocate for ethical business, released its 2015 World's Most Ethical Companies list on Monday, honoring companies for their commitment to ethical business practices and corporate character.

[Also: 12 hospitals featured on two best hospitals lists]

Two Cleveland hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, were listed, along with Baptist Health in Miami, Florida and the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in New Hyde Park, New York.

University Hospitals in a statement said its ethics and community health standards helped it earn a spot on the list for the third time. The system runs a sustainability program, workforce development program and outreach programs, including one that offered fresh produce to nearly 1,000 patients last year.

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Ethisphere rates companies on categories including ethics and compliance, corporate citizenship and responsibility, culture of ethics, governance and leadership and innovation and reputation.

Baptist Health said it was honored for programs including its rigid code of ethics, conflict of interest and vendor relations policies, as well as its 17-year-old corporate compliance program.

“We are committed to doing the right thing for our employees, our patients and the communities we serve," said CEO Brian E. Keeley, in a statement.

One of the largest providers on the list was Hospital Corp. of America, a Nashville, Tennessee operator of 166 hospitals and 113 ambulatory surgery centers.

"Of particular note are our internal compliance reporting process, our compliance process review efforts and our responsible executive program," said Alan Yuspeh, senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer for HCA, in a statement. That program taps 42 executives and places them in charge of key areas of compliance risk.

Hospitals, however, made up only a quarter of the healthcare companies named to the Ethisphere list. Four insurers were named, including three Blue Cross plans and the Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corp. Also listed was medical product distributor giant Henry Schein, the second from New York's Long Island to make the list along with North Shore-LIJ. 

Two healthcare services companies also made the annual list: Premier and Novation, which both market health care solutions to broad provider networks.

Here is the full list:

• Baptist Health South Florida - Miami, Florida
• Cleveland Clinic - Cleveland, Ohio
• North Shore-LIJ Health System - New Hyde Park, New York
• University Hospitals - Cleveland, Ohio
• Hospital Corporation of America - Nashville, Tennessee
• Novation LLC - Irving, Texas
• Premier Inc. - Charlotte, North Carolina
• Henry Schein - Melville, New York
• Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation - Madison, Wisconsin
• Blue Shield of California - San Francisco, California
• BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina - Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina
• CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield - Owings Mills, Maryland

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