April 12, 2007

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (April 12, 2007) – Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center of Sioux Falls, S.D., has been named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® by Solucient®, part of Thomson Healthcare, a leading provider of information and solutions to improve the cost and quality of health care.

The award recognizes hospitals that have achieved excellence in clinical outcomes, patient safety, financial performance, efficiency, and growth in patient volume. The 2006 Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study appears in the March 12 edition of Modern Healthcare magazine.

“Avera McKennan scored above the medians of peer hospital benchmarks in the areas of clinical excellence and outcomes, as well as patient safety. For those reasons, we are particularly proud of our physicians and staff, who offer an extremely high level of care to the people of our region,” said Fred Slunecka, president and CEO of Avera McKennan.

As a 490-bed Magnet facility, Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center is recognized for excellence in many areas, including behavioral health, cancer care, cardiac care, emergency medicine and trauma, air ambulance services, home health and hospice programs, medical education and research, neurosciences, obstetrics, orthopedics, pediatrics, rehabilitation services. Avera McKennan is home to the region’s first kidney, pancreas and bone marrow transplant programs.

The 2006 Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks for Success study uses a balanced scorecard approach and scores hospitals according to nine key organization-wide measures: risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, patient safety, core measures average, growth in patient volume, severity-adjusted average length of stay, expense per adjusted discharge, profit from operations, and cash-to-debt ratio.

If all hospitals performed like the benchmark hospitals, more than 100,000 additional patients could survive each year, and an additional 114,000 could avoid complications.

More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com.

About Avera McKennan

Our ministry, our people and our superior value distinguish Avera. We carry on the health care legacy of the Benedictine and Presentation Sisters, delivering care in an environment guided by our values of compassion, hospitality and stewardship. Avera McKennan colleagues work for the largest health system in the region. The Avera network has some 12,000 employees and physicians, serving 227 locations and 82 communities in a five-state region. Inpatient and clinic visits totaled 1,890,000 in the last fiscal year, a number equal to nearly twice the population of the Avera service area.