SJRMC Recognized Among Nation's Best for Clinical Outcomes
Orthopedics Cited in Ninth Annual HealthGrades Study
October 18, 2006 -- Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center announced today it has been ranked among the top five percent in the nation for Overall Orthopedic Care and Joint Replacement, according to a comprehensive study released by HealthGrades, the nation's leading healthcare ratings company.
Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center is also the recipient of the 2007 HealthGrades Orthopedic Care Excellence Award™ and the Joint Replacement Excellence Award™.
"These honors illustrate how diligently we have worked to improve and broaden our orthopedic services," said Nancy R. Hellyer, CEO and President of Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center. "We are just so thankful that our patients and our communities have access to the excellent care offered at the Saint Joseph Human Motion Institute."
As part of its ninth annual Hospital Quality in America Study, HealthGrades independently analyzed more than 5,000 hospitals in all 50 states and the District of Columbia for its 2007 ratings, objectively assessing their clinical outcomes and quality. The 40 million hospitalization records utilized in the assessment are publicly available and licensed from the federal government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The HealthGrades ratings take into account varying degrees of patient severity from hospital to hospital and measure whether patient outcomes for each of more than two dozen procedures and diagnoses are better than expected (5-Star), as expected (3-Star) or worse than expected (1-Star).
"Consumers continue to ask for more and better information to help them in their health care decision making," said Samantha Collier, M.D., HealthGrades' Vice President of medical affairs. "Our analysis provides an apples-to-apples comparison of hospital performance by procedure or diagnosis, and it is evident there is significant variance between individual hospitals. For Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center to rank among the nation's best reflects the efforts of everybody in the organization, and should be very comforting to area residents."
The 2007 HealthGrades ratings for all hospitals nationwide are available, free of charge, on HealthGrades' consumer Web site, located at www.healthgrades.com. More than three million individuals and employees of more than 125 major employers visit the HealthGrades web site every month to access quality information about hospitals, nursing homes and physicians. HealthGrades also provides consumers and payers with detailed assessments of hospitals' patient-safety outcomes, based on indicators developed by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
About HealthGrades
HealthGrades (Nasdaq:HGRD) is the leading healthcare ratings company, providing ratings and profiles of hospitals, nursing homes and physicians to consumers, corporations, health plans and hospitals. Millions of consumers and hundreds of the nation's largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades' independent ratings to make healthcare decisions based on the quality of care. More information on the company can be found at http://www.healthgrades.com.
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