HealthGrades Identifies Hospitals in the Top 5% of the Nation for Clinical Excellence
Each year HealthGrades independently assesses the quality of care provided at the nation’s 5,000 nonfederal hospitals. In the eighth annual study, HealthGrades has objectively identified hospitals that are performing among the best in the nation across 26 diagnoses and procedures. These hospitals are further designated as a HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence™. These ratings and a list of specific recipients are available to consumers in order to help them make health care decisions based on the quality of care provided.
To be considered for HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence™ (DHA-CE), a hospital had to have star ratings in at least 19 of the 26 HealthGrades procedures and diagnoses ratings using MedPAR data. After creating a list of hospitals that met the above criteria, HealthGrades took the following steps to determine the DHA-CE recipients.
- Calculated the average star rating and average z-score for each hospital by averaging all of their MedPAR-based ratings and the corresponding z-scores.
- Ranked hospitals in descending order by their average star rating, with ties broken by average z-score.
- Selected the top 269 hospitals on the list (which represents the top 5% of all hospitals).
- Designated the hospitals as recipients of the 2010 Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence.
Overall, the Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence consistently outperformed all other hospitals from 2006-2008.
Distinguished Hospitals:
- Had 29% lower risk-adjusted inhospital mortality.
- Performed 9% better in inhospital complications.
- Improved at a greater rate for risk-adjusted mortality.
Patients in need of a medical procedure who choose to receive their care at a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence will have a lower risk for an adverse clinical outcome relative to all other hospitals. In fact, if all hospitals performed at the level of Distinguished Hospitals, 150,132 Medicare lives could potentially have been saved and 13,104 Medicare inhospital complications could potentially have been avoided.