Providence Southern California earned top state honors today as the first health system in California to win Healthgrades’ Distinguished Hospital Award for all four of its hospitals eligible to be evaluated for this honor..
Healthgrades, a top consumer ratings company, awarded this distinction to hospitals that rank among the top 5 percent in the nation for performance on 27 of the most common diagnoses and procedures. The results mean better outcomes for seriously ill patients.
Providence Holy Cross, Providence Saint Joseph and Providence Tarzana medical centers in the San Fernando Valley and Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance were among the 262 medical centers in the U.S. recognized with the Distinguished Hospitals Award for Clinical Excellence.
“Every Providence caregiver stands on the shoulders of our founding sisters, whose 157-year tradition of excellence and compassion lives today in all our ministries,” said Michael Hunn, senior vice president and chief executive, Providence Health & Services, Southern California. “We are proud to be recognized by Healthgrades for our successes in providing the best care for our patients.
Distinguished Hospitals, as a group, have a 30.9 percent lower risk-adjusted in-hospital mortality rate across 18 conditions and procedures as compared to all other U.S. hospitals evaluated. Healthgrades estimates that, if all other U.S. hospitals performed at this high level from 2009 through 2011, 164,414 deaths nationwide potentially could have been prevented.
“Healthgrades is committed to providing consumers with information to help them make more informed decisions across the continuum of care – including selecting a physician and an affiliated hospital,” said Roger Holstein, CEO, Healthgrades. “This report gives consumers the power to differentiate the likelihood of a better health outcome on the basis of the hospital’s objective quality measures.”
For hospitals to be eligible for this award, they were evaluated in at least 19 of 27 conditions and procedures studied by Healthgrades. Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center San Pedro, the fifth Providence medical center in the Southern California Region, was not eligible to compete for this award.
According to American Hospital Quality Outcomes 2013: Healthgrades Report to the Nation, released in October, there are significant variations in hospital quality across conditions and procedures, demonstrating that certain hospitals perform better in specific specialties than others. Distinguished Hospital Award recipients are unique, however, because they exhibit high-quality care across a broad range of clinical specialties.
“Consumers should know before they go,” said Archelle Georgiou, M.D., a strategic advisor to Healthgrades. “We have shown that all hospitals are NOT created equal, and selecting the right physician or hospital can mean the difference between having a complication-free surgery or hospitalization. It can even be a matter of life or death.”
