SJRMC Rankes #1 in Indiana for Orthopaedic Care

October 25, 2010

10/26/10 HealthGrades’ annual study released ranks overall orthopaedic care at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center #1 in Indiana and in the top 10% in the nation. HealthGrades, the nation’s leading independent ratings organization, evaluates patient outcomes for 5,000 hospitals. This research is the only comprehensive analysis based solely on patient mortality and complication rates. This is the second consecutive year SJRMC received the state’s top ranking for overall orthopaedic care.

For the ninth consecutive year, SJRMC received a 5-star rating for overall orthopaedics care.

SJRMC also received the Orthopaedic Surgery Excellence Award the Joint Surgery Excellence Award and the Spine Surgery Excellence Award for 2011.

“Quality patient care is our top priority,” said Thomas A. Reitinger, SJRMC’s Interim President and CEO. “Recognition from an objective, independent source such as HealthGrades validates the efforts our physicians, nurses, and staff deliver to the people of the many communities we serve everyday.”

The HealthGrades study, the largest annual report of its kind, analyzed patient outcomes in nearly 40 million Medicare hospitalization records from the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. Among the findings related to in-hospital complications in this year’s study are:

• Across all procedures in which complications were studied, there was an 80% lower chance of experiencing one or more complications in a 5-star rated hospital compared to a 1-star rated hospital. 
• Across all procedures studied, there was a 63% lower chance of experiencing one or more in-hospital complications in a 5-star rated hospital compared to the U.S. hospital average.
• If all hospitals performed at the level of a 5-star rated hospital, 185,875 in-hospital complications may have been avoided among Medicare patients over the three years studied.

 The new 2011 HealthGrades hospital ratings were posted last week and are free to the public at www.healthgrades.com.