HealthGrades Names Top Cities for Hospital Care

Study By HealthGrades

HealthGrades Quality Study Identifies Hospitals in Top 5% in Nation; Cities That Have Highest Concentration of Top Hospitals

Patients Treated at HealthGrades Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence Have 30% Lower Chance of Dying
How does the quality of care at hospitals in your area compare? Find out with HealthGrades second annual list of America’s Top Cities for Hospital Care. HealthGrades is the leading provider of information to help consumers make an informed decision about a physician or hospital. The independent rankings are based on a comprehensive study of patient death and complication rates at the nation’s nearly 5,000 hospitals.

As part of its tenth annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study, HealthGrades identified those hospitals performing in the top 5% nationwide across 26 different medical procedures and diagnoses, then ranked cities by highest percentage of these Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence™.

Selecting a Top Hospital Matters

In an environment where one in seven Medicare beneficiaries is harmed as a result of their hospitalization (Source: Department of Health and Human Services) and patients are fearful of the very institutions that are entrusted with saving their lives, it is important to identify and acknowledge those hospitals that are leading the way in reducing mortality and complication rates and to provide consumers access to this information.

For the communities themselves, these hospitals have significant impact. In some instances, the top cities named in this report can make the claim that almost half of their hospitals provide this level of care including: Baltimore (47%), Phoenix-Prescott (44%), Cedar Rapids (43%), and Richmond, Virginia (43%).

In addition to selecting the best hospital, it is also important to become educated on potential complications and learn how to protect yourself during a hospital stay.

How Did Your City Rank? What Hospitals In Your City Made the Grade?

“Today’s healthcare consumer expects access to credible, independent information about the quality of care available to them,” said Kristin Reed, MPH, HealthGrades vice president of hospital ratings and study author. “HealthGrades is proud of its longstanding tradition of educating the American public about both the gaps in quality of care among hospitals, and with actionable information about the top-performing hospitals in their communities.”

Distinguished Hospital Facts

• Distinguished hospitals can be found in 38 states.
• The cities with the highest percentage of Distinguished Hospitals are found in 26 states. Distinguished hospitals had 30.07% lower mortality rates and 1.86% lower complication rates after adjusting for patient severity of illness.
• If all hospitals performed at the same level as Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence, 165,704 Medicare lives could have been saved in just three years and 6,800 inhospital complications avoided.

About HealthGrades Hospital Quality Distinctions

As part of this study, HealthGrades evaluates each of the nation’s 5,000 nonfederal hospitals in 26 procedures and diagnoses, allowing individuals to compare their local hospitals online at www.healthgrades.com. HealthGrades hospital quality distinctions are independently created; no hospital can opt-in or opt-out of being evaluated, and no hospital pays to be evaluated. Mortality and complication rates are risk adjusted, which takes into account differing levels of severity of patient illness at different hospitals and allows for hospitals to be compared equally.

Click here to view HealthGrades Top Cities for Hospital Care

Click here to view HealthGrades Methodology for selecting top hospitals