OMHS remains among top five percent of nation’s hospitals

One of only 16 hospitals to receive three top HealthGrades awards

   

Owensboro, KY (January 26, 2011) –HealthGrades has named Owensboro Medical Health System a Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence™ for the third consecutive year—continuing to place the hospital among the top five percent in the nation for clinical performance.  HealthGrades Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study, released today, identifies hospitals with the best overall clinical performance across all 26 medical diagnoses and procedures that the organization rates. OMHS is among a group of only 268 hospitals receiving the award and one of only two Kentucky hospitals to receive it.

Getting the clinical excellence award for the third year places OMHS among a group of 16 hospitals in the entire nation the achieve the award, the HealthGrades’ Patient Safety Excellence™ and Outstanding Patient Experience™ awards over the past year.

OMHS is also ranked number one in Kentucky in three separate specialty areas according to HealthGrades. OMHS is the top ranked hospital in the state for: 1) joint replacement surgery—such as total knee replacements; 2) critical care, which includes treating high acuity patients with diagnoses such as sepsis (infection of the blood) and respiratory failure; and 3) medical treatment of gastrointestinal issues such as bowel obstruction.

OMHS continues to rank among the nation’s top hospitals due to its persistent efforts to focus on quality improvements in place over the last several years, including initiatives to improve patient outcomes for joint replacements, heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, chronic lung disease and reduce the incidence of infections, blood clots and pressure ulcers from skin breakdown.

“Receiving this award for the third year demonstrates that we provide consistently superior healthcare for our patients,” said Robert Schell, MD, a general and vascular surgeon and chair of the OMHS Board of Directors Quality and Safety Committee. “Quality improvement continues to be an emphasis in our board meetings and throughout the organization.”

Unlike other hospital quality studies, HealthGrades evaluates hospitals solely on clinical outcomes: risk-adjusted mortality and inhospital complications. HealthGrades’ analysis is based on approximately 40 million Medicare discharges for 2007, 2008 and 2009. Using the top-performing hospitals as a benchmark in this year’s HealthGrades study, HealthGrades quantifies the impact of differences in hospital quality in terms of lives lost and unexpected complications.

The HealthGrades study found that:

·  Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence (Top 5% in the nation) such as OMHS outperformed all other hospitals across all of the 17 mortality cohorts and six of nine complication cohorts studied from 2007 through 2009.

· Specifically, Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence had a 29.82 percent lower risk-adjusted mortality rate and a 1.91 percent lower risk-adjusted in-hospital complication rate among Medicare beneficiaries compared to all other hospitals.

· If all hospitals performed at the level of those in the top five percent, 158,684 Medicare patients could potentially have been saved, and 3,511 Medicare in-hospital complications likely avoided.

Owensboro Medical Health System serves an eleven-county region in western Kentucky and southern Indiana. The hospital has received awards for clinical excellence, patient safety and outstanding patient experience from HealthGrades, placing it among the top five percent of hospitals in the nation for quality (OMHS is one of only 16 hospitals in the nation to receive all the three honors). Cooperative Health Services, an affiliate of OMHS, also operates the HealthPark—a medical-based fitness center—and a number of clinics and diagnostic centers in Beaver Dam and Madisonville (KY) and Tell City (IN) as well as The Clinic at Wal-Mart  in Owensboro, Henderson (KY) and Newburgh (IN).

 

HealthGrades’ Hospital Ratings

As part of this study, HealthGrades rates 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 ratings are independently created; no hospital can opt-in or opt-out of being rated, and no hospital pays to be rated. 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.

 

About HealthGrades

HealthGrades is the leading independent health care ratings organization, providing quality ratings, profiles and cost information on the nation's hospitals, physicians, and nursing homes. Millions of patients and many of the nation’s largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades’ quality ratings, advisory services and decision-support resources. The HealthGrades Network of Web sites, including HealthGrades.com and WrongDiagnosis.com, is a top-ten health property according to comScore and is the Internet's leading destination for patients choosing providers. More information on how HealthGrades guides Americans to their best health can be found at www.healthgrades.com.