St. Elizabeth Healthcare

3.20.2012

News Room: St. Elizabeth Edgewood Among HealthGrades America’s 50 Best Hospitals for Sixth Straight Year

Among other awards: Number 1 in the region for overall orthopedic services

To download a pdf of this news release, please click here.

Edgewood, KY—St. Elizabeth Edgewood announced today that its superior clinical quality has placed it among an elite group of U.S. hospitals: HealthGrades America’s 50 Best Hospitals. This is St. Elizabeth Edgewood’s sixth straight year to receive this award.

To be recognized with this distinction, hospitals must have had risk-adjusted mortality and complication rates that were in the best top 5% in the nation for the most consecutive years. On average, patients treated at America’s 50 Best Hospitals had a nearly 30% lower risk of death.

“Our associates and physicians are at the forefront of our success. They are the reason why we have such a strong reputation for service and patient care,” said John S. Dubis, FACHE, President and Chief Executive Officer. “What makes us particularly proud of the HealthGrades recognition is that it is one of the only national rankings that rates hospitals based solely on actual clinical outcomes. This acknowledgement means that patients at St. Elizabeth have better outcomes than more than 4,500 other hospitals in the country.”

To determine America’s 50 Best Hospitals, HealthGrades analyzed more than 150 million Medicare hospitalization records from every non-federal hospital in the nation. Hospitals must meet minimum thresholds in terms of patient volumes, quality ratings, and the range of services provided. Specifically, hospitals were evaluated based on the risk-adjusted mortality and complication rates across 26 procedures and treatments, from hip replacement to bypass surgery.

From 2008 through 2010, if all U.S. hospitals had performed at the level of A50B hospitals, 179,593 Medicare deaths may have been prevented.

“As our nation seeks to elevate the quality of care at all hospitals, these elite facilities provide a roadmap for success,” said Dr. Arshad Rahim, HealthGrades Director of Accelerated Clinical Excellence. “Consumers increasingly are demanding greater transparency and quality when selecting healthcare providers. These hospitals are delivering. We commend them for their dedication to excellence in patient care.

St. Elizabeth Edgewood’s clinical achievements do not stop there. Other top accolades include: St. Elizabeth Edgewood Number 1 in the Greater Cincinnati region for overall orthopedic services. It also received the 2012 HealthGrades Specialty Excellence Award™ for orthopedic services, spine surgery, pulmonary care, critical care and emergency medicine, and is ranked Number 1 in Kentucky for overall orthopedic services, spine surgery and GI medical treatment. St. Elizabeth was also awarded the HealthGrades Specialty Excellence Award for women’s health in 2011 and is awaiting 2012 notification later this year.

“We are constantly looking for innovative ways to expand and enhance the services we offer, from mitral valve repair using the da Vinci surgical robot to installation of the TrueBeam linear accelerator at our Cancer Care Center to the Centers of Excellence we are creating for cardiovascular, diabetes, weight management, total joint, spine and women’s wellness,” John Dubis said.

A copy of the full report on HealthGrades America’s 50 Best Hospitals may be found at www.healthgrades.com.

St. Elizabeth Healthcare
St. Elizabeth Healthcare operates six facilities throughout Northern Kentucky—St. Elizabeth Covington, St. Elizabeth Edgewood, St. Elizabeth Falmouth, St. Elizabeth Florence, St. Elizabeth Fort Thomas, and St. Elizabeth Grant. It also has vast resources to serve the Greater Cincinnati area, including almost 1,200 licensed beds, a physician organization which includes 62 primary care and specialty office locations, more than 1,200 physicians with admitting privileges, more than 7,300 associates including St. Elizabeth Physicians, and three freestanding imaging centers. St. Elizabeth Healthcare is sponsored by the Diocese of Covington and provided more than $83 million in uncompensated care and benefit to the community in 2010.

About HealthGrades
HealthGrades, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, is a leading provider of comprehensive information about physicians and hospitals. More than 200 million consumers use the HealthGrades websites, including HealthGrades.com and BetterMedicine.com, to research, select, and connect with a physician or hospital, and use its comprehensive information about clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, patient safety, and health conditions to make more informed healthcare decisions and take action. Find more information about our products and services at HealthGrades.com. Follow us on Twitter (@HealthGrades) and Facebook for news and updates. More information on how HealthGrades guides Americans to their best health can be found at www.healthgrades.com.

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