Sellersville, PA – For the third consecutive year an annual study on patient safety at American hospitals found Grand View Hospital to be in the top 5 percent in the nation. The study, conducted by HealthGrades®, the leading independent health-care ratings organization, named Grand View as one of 238 hospitals nationwide to receive the 2010 HealthGrades® Patient Safety Excellence Award™.

“Receiving this award for the third year in a row reaffirms our commitment to patient safety. It’s a testament to our staff of physicians, nurses, and other health-care providers who make patient safety a top priority in their daily work,” says Darla Weaver, vice president of quality and a patient safety officer at the hospital.

Grand View Hospital is the only hospital in a seven-county area—comprising of Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Northampton, and Philadelphia— to receive the HealthGrades® Patient Safety Excellence AwardTM three years in a row 2008-2010.

“Grand View Hospital is among the hospitals setting the benchmark for excellence in patient safety, something that the people of Bucks County and the surrounding counties should take great pride and comfort in,” said Rick May, MD, a vice president at HealthGrades® and co-author of the study. “To achieve this level of patient safety, hospitals like Grand View tend to have a culture of quality that drives vigilance and continuous improvement, and they should be congratulated.”

For hospitals that were identified as being in the top 5 percent in the nation, Medicare patients, on average, were 43 percent less likely to experience a patient safety event.

HealthGrades® conducts the largest annual studies of hospital quality in America, in part to identify hospitals that set quality benchmarks. If all hospitals performed at the level of those receiving the Patient Safety Excellence Award™, like Grand View Hospital, more than 200,000 patient safety events and nearly 23,000 Medicare deaths could have been avoided over the three years studied.

This is not the first time that Grand View has been honored by HealthGrades®. Grand View Hospital also received five stars in 2010 for total knee replacement and is the only hospital in Bucks and Montgomery counties to receive five stars in 2010 in total joint replacement from HealthGrades®.

Grand View Hospital, Bucks County’s first hospital, has provided residents of Bucks and Montgomery counties with comprehensive health care services since 1913. Grand View offers a range of inpatient and outpatient care – particularly emphasizing the areas of surgery and orthopaedics, women's and children's health, heart and vascular care, and cancer treatment.