Prisma Health Earns National “Health System of the Year” Honor for Excellence in Patient Care
February 16, 2026
Award recognizes sustained excellence in safety, experience, workforce engagement, and operational performance
Press Ganey, the leading provider of experience measurement, data analytics and AI-powered insights to health systems and health plans, today announced that Prisma Health has been named the HX26 Health System of the Year.
Over the past several years, Prisma Health has fundamentally redesigned how the organization manages day-to-day operations across its hospitals and care settings. Confronted with growing complexity, fragmented management routines, and mounting pressure on caregivers, Prisma leaders developed and committed to a Clinical Operating System (cOS), a unified, tech-enabled approach to running the organization that brings safety, quality, experience, and efficiency into a single, shared operating rhythm.
Rather than managing these priorities through parallel programs and disconnected processes, Prisma aligned leaders and teams around one consistent way of working. The Clinical Operating System established common routines for tiered huddles, leader rounding, escalation, and performance visibility, creating clarity and accountability from the bedside to the executive level. This system-owned operating model governs how teams identify issues early, coordinate across levels, and close the loop consistently.
Mark O’Halla, Prisma Health president and CEO, said, “Our team tore up the old playbook and created a simple, transparent, powerful new way of working — and that transformation is what makes this recognition possible. It proves what can happen when talented people are empowered to innovate and truly focus on patients.”
The results of this operating discipline have been significant and measurable. After three years operating under this model, Prisma Health achieved a 59% improvement in top-box patient experience scores. Serious safety events declined by 57%, while hospital-acquired infections fell between 8 and 69% across key categories. Workforce engagement strengthened alongside clinical outcomes, with team turnover declining by nearly one-third. Operational performance improved as well, with average length of stay reduced by more than one day.
Prisma Health leaders and clinicians believe this change not only helps the team provide better care for patients but also represents a lasting shift in expectations and behaviors—one that simplifies work, reduces friction, and empowers teams to solve problems at the right level before they escalate.
Today, the Clinical Operating System is embedded into Prisma Health’s daily operations and leadership practices. The organization continues to strengthen and scale this approach, supported by Press Ganey’s Human Experience (HX) Platform, which provides the technology foundation to unify insights, reinforce accountability, and support consistent execution across the system. This partnership helps Prisma sustain gains and extend its operating model as the organization adapts to ongoing change and future growth.
“Prisma Health earned this recognition because they were willing to make a decisive commitment to a new way of leading and managing a health system,” said Patrick T. Ryan, Chairman and CEO of Press Ganey. “Under the leadership of CEO Mark S. O’Halla and Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Jonathan Gleason, the organization aligned around a single Clinical Operating System, fully aware that meaningful improvement requires focus, consistency, and tradeoffs. Our role has been to support and accelerate what Prisma built, providing the technology to help scale their model and sustain it across a complex system. The results reflect what happens when leaders choose transformation over incremental change.”
Gleason said, “Our team has transformed and simplified the way that we do our work through the Pulse Clinical Operating System. This model enables our incredible clinicians to take great care of our patients, and improve not just clinical outcomes, but also improve the experience of giving and receiving care.”
About Prisma Health
Recognized as one of “America’s Most Innovative Companies” by Fortune, Prisma Health is a private nonprofit health company with over 32,000 team members, 19 acute and specialty hospitals, 3,131 licensed beds, 320 practice sites, and more than 5,900 employed and independent clinicians across its clinically integrated inVio Health Network. Each year, Prisma Health serves more than 1.6 million patients in South Carolina and Tennessee. Connect with Prisma Health on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter/X and TikTok. Visit PrismaHealth.org.
About Press Ganey
Press Ganey is a leading global provider of experience technology, data analytics, and AI-powered insights that help companies better understand and serve their customers, employees, and stakeholders. Press Ganey powers the Human Experience (HX) Platform – a comprehensive experience and research technology platform that brings together CX (Customer Experience), Employee Experience (EX), Patient Experience (PX) and Market Research. It serves more than 43,000 clients globally across healthcare, financial services, hospitality, market research, professional services, retail, technology, and other end markets. Press Ganey is recognized by Gartner® as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant™ for Voice of the Customer (VoC) Platforms.
