St. Mary’s Health Care System announced today that it has been recognized by Healthgrades as one of America’s 100 Best hospitals for Joint Replacement, Gastrointestinal Care and General Surgery.

Healthgrades is a leading online resource that helps consumers search, compare and connect with physicians and hospitals. For its 2015 analysis, Healthgrades evaluated nearly 4,500 hospitals nationwide for 33 of the most common inpatient procedures and conditions and identified the 100 best hospitals within each procedure. 

In addition to the America’s 100 best awards, St. Mary’s 2015 recognitions from Healthgrades include:

• Excellence awards for joint replacement, stroke care, gastrointestinal care and general surgery.
• 5-star ratings for knee and hip replacement, and treatment of heart failure, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), GI bleed, bowel obstruction, gallbladder removal surgery and respiratory failure.
• Top 5 percent of hospitals in America for joint replacement, treatment of stroke, overall GI services and general surgery. 

St. Mary’s Healthgrades recognitions continuing from 2014 include:

• Awards for patient safety, outstanding patient experience and women’s health.
• Top 5 percent of hospitals in America for patient safety.
• Top 10 percent of hospitals in America for outstanding patient experience. 

St. Mary’s is also a recipient of Healthgrades® 2014 Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence™. Healthgrades will announce recipients of the 2015 Distinguished Hospital Award later this month. 

“We are proud to be recognized by Healthgrades in multiple areas of clinical excellence,” said St. Mary’s President and CEO Don McKenna. “We are committed to providing our community with the safest, most effective, evidence-based care available. We are also aware that excellence is a moving target. The bar is always rising. We are dedicated to continuous improvement.”

St. Mary’s achievements are part of findings released recently in Healthgrades 2015 Report to the Nation, which demonstrates how clinical performance differs dramatically between hospitals. The report further shows how this variation may impact health outcomes. 

For example, from 2011-2013, if all hospitals as a group performed similarly to hospitals receiving 5-stars as a group, on average 228,426 lives could potentially have been saved and 169,298 complications could potentially have been avoided. (Statistics are based on Healthgrades’ analysis of MedPAR data for years 2011 through 2013 and represent 3-year estimates for Medicare patients only.) A 5-star rating indicates that the hospital’s clinical outcomes are better than expected when treating the condition or conducting the procedure being evaluated.

“As Americans take increasing responsibility when it comes to their health, it is more important than ever for consumers to access objective measures of quality when selecting a physician and hospital,’ said Evan Marks, Chief Strategy Officer, Healthgrades. “Consumers who select a physician associated with a hospital with Healthgrades 5-star performance in a specific procedure or condition can potentially improve their health outcomes and reduce costs.” 

Stroke care is a good example of St. Mary’s success in quality improvement, McKenna said. Starting around the year 2000, St. Mary’s began developing processes, procedures, facilities, technology and staff training to earn Joint Commission specialty certification in stroke care in 2004. Today, physician-directed, multidisciplinary teams continuously track best practices for treatment of stroke and recommend changes across St. Mary’s continuum of care. As a result, outcomes for stroke patients at St. Mary’s are significantly better than national averages.

“Our success in stroke care shows that quality requires a long-term commitment,” McKenna said. “It takes an ongoing, dedicated team effort across the whole system. Our stroke program demonstrates that while some improvements can be accomplished quickly, true success comes from being fully invested in a permanent process of improvement.” 

For its analysis, Healthgrades evaluated approximately 40 million Medicare-patient records for nearly 4,500 short-term acute care hospitals nationwide, assessing hospital performance relative to each of 33 common conditions and procedures. Healthgrades recognizes hospitals with quality achievements for cohort-specific performance, specialty area performance, and overall clinical quality. Individual procedure or condition cohorts are designated as 5 star (statistically better than expected), 3 star (statistically as expected) and 1 star (statistically worse than expected) categories. Detailed performance information, such as cohort-specific outcomes data and quality achievements for individual hospitals may be found at www.healthgrades.com/find-a-hospital.

More information on the Healthgrades 2015 Report to the Nation, including the complete methodology, can be found at www.healthgrades.com/quality.