EvergreenHealth named one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals in five specialtiesThe following is a release from EvergreenHealth:

EvergreenHealth today announced it has been recognized by Healthgrades as one of America’s 100 Best hospitals in five specialties: stroke care, pulmonary care, critical care, gastrointestinal care and general surgery. These achievements are part of findings released this week in the Healthgrades 2017 Report to the Nation, which studies clinical performance indicators nationwide, offering patients data-based resources to make informed decisions about physicians and hospitals. 

“We are proud to be recognized by Healthgrades as one of America’s highest-performing hospitals,” said EvergreenHealth CEO Bob Malte. “This honor is a testament to EvergreenHealth’s very strong commitment to safety, quality of care and service to our patients and communities.”

For its 2017 report, Healthgrades evaluated nearly 4,500 hospitals nationwide for 34 of the most common inpatient procedures and conditions. It identified the 100 best-performing hospitals across all conditions or procedures evaluated within nine clinical service areas.

This is the fourth consecutive year EvergreenHealth ranks among Healthgrades’ 100 Best™ hospitals for pulmonary care and for gastrointestinal care, and the third straight year of recognition for general surgery. It is also the second year in a row the health system earned the distinction for both critical care and stroke care.

EvergreenHealth is the only health system in Washington state to be named among the top five percent in the nation for neurosciences for two years in a row. The health system received the Healthgrades Stroke Care Excellence Award™ for the eighth consecutive year, as well.

EvergreenHealth’s dedication to patient-focused care and services is also reflected in its year-over-year track record of earning Healthgrades’ Five-Star ratings in multiple areas of treatment. The health system earned Five-Star ratings in the treatment of pneumonia for 12 years in a row, treatment of stroke and sepsis for eight consecutive years, the treatment of heart failure for seven years in a row and the treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) for six consecutive years, among others.

Healthgrades recognizes a hospital’s quality achievements for cohort-specific performance, specialty area performance, and overall clinical quality. Individual procedure or condition cohorts are designated as 5-star (statistically significantly better than expected), three-star (not statistically different from expected) and 1-star (statistically significantly worse than expected) categories.

At the national level, Healthgrades’ report continues to illuminate differences in care between high- and low-performing hospitals. For example, from 2013-2015, if all hospitals collectively performed similarly to hospitals receiving five-stars as a group, on average 223,412 lives could potentially have been saved and 162,215 complications could potentially have been avoided. A five-star rating indicates that a hospital’s clinical outcomes are statistically significantly better than expected when treating the condition or performing the procedure being evaluated.

“We applaud Healthgrades for using rigorous research to shine a light on the fact that all care delivery is not equal, and that by visiting hospitals with high performance indicators, patients can help reduce their risk of complications or even mortality,” Malte said. “We believe these evidence-based efforts are critical to help patients make informed decisions about their care.”

“The Healthgrades 2017 Report to the Nation reveals striking disparities in the quality observed among the Nation’s hospitals, and underscores why it is vital for consumers to understand outcomes performance at specific hospitals for specific conditions and procedures,” said Evan Marks, Chief Strategy Officer for Healthgrades. “A given community may have many hospitals, but only a precious few may provide better-than-expected outcomes for the specific care a patient needs. Those hospitals that have achieved the Healthgrades 100 Best Specialty distinction have demonstrated a commitment to exceptional quality of care.”

For its analysis, Healthgrades evaluated approximately 45 million Medicare inpatient records for nearly 4,500 short-term acute care hospitals nationwide, assessing hospital performance relative to each of 32 common conditions and procedures, as well as an evaluation of comparative outcomes in appendectomy and bariatric surgery using all-payer data provided by 18 states.