Grand View Hospital Receives HealthGrades’ 2008 Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient Safety™
One of only 249 Hospitals to Receive this Distinction

(Published April 8, 2008) – HealthGrades, the nation’s leading healthcare ratings company, has recognized Grand View Hospital with the 2008 Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient Safety™.  As one of only 249 hospitals in the nation to receive this distinction, Grand View Hospital is ranked in the top five percent in the nation in patient safety.

Grand View Hospital is one of only 17 hospitals in Pennsylvania to receive this distinction and the only hospital in a seven county region, which includes Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Northampton and Philadelphia.

Grand View Hospital has also received HealthGrades’ 5-Star Quality Rating for Maternity Care in 2007 and 2008.

“We are honored to receive this acknowledgement from HealthGrades,” said Darla Weaver, RN, vice president Patient Services at Grand View Hospital.  “Day in and day out we make sure that patients receive the best care possible, and it is nice to be recognized for something that we feel is important and work hard to accomplish.”

In its Fifth Annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study, HealthGrades independently analyzed 41 million Medicare patient records and found that patients treated at top-performing hospitals had, on average, a 43 percent lower chance of experiencing one or more medical errors compared to the poorest-performing hospitals.  If all U.S. hospitals had performed at the level of HealthGrades 2008 Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety™, approximately 220,106 patient safety incidents and 37,214 Medicare deaths could have been avoided while saving the U.S. approximately $2 billion during 2004 to 2006.

“Grand View Hospital is among those hospitals leading the way to reduce these costly errors and improve patient care in America,” said Dr. Samantha Collier, HealthGrades’ chief medical officer and the primary author of the study.  “HealthGrades commends Grand View Hospital for its commitment to ensure patients receive the safest possible medical care.”

The fifth annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study applies methodology developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.  The methodology identifies the incident rates of 13 patient safety indicators among Medicare patients at virtually all of the nation’s nearly 5,000 nonfederal hospitals.  Additionally, HealthGrades applied its methodology to identify the best-performing hospitals, or Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety™, which represent the top five percent of all U.S. hospitals.

Ratings for individual hospitals and the full study were posted today to HealthGrades’ consumer Web site, www.healthgrades.com.

The following are the 13 patient-safety incidents used to identify HealthGrades Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety™:

• Death in low mortality Diagnostic Related Groupings (DRGs)
• Decubitus ulcer
• Failure to rescue
• Foreign body left in during procedure
• Iatrogenic pneumothorax
• Selected infections due to medical care
• Post-operative hip fracture
• Post-operative hemorrhage or hemotoma
• Post-operative physiologic and metabolic derangements
• Post-operative respiratory failure
• Post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis
• Post-operative sepsis
• Post-operative abdominal wound dehiscence

HealthGrades is the nation’s leading healthcare ratings organization, providing ratings and profiles of hospitals, physicians and nursing homes.  Millions of consumers and many of the nation’s largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades’ independent ratings and decision support resources to make healthcare decisions based on the quality and cost of care.  More information on the company can be found at www.healthgrades.com.