El Camino Hospital Again Ranks Among Top Five Percent in Nation According to HealthGrades Quality Study

For the fourth year in a row, El Camino Hospital ranked among the nation’s top five percent of hospitals, according to an independent study of mortality and complication rates released today by HealthGrades, the nation’s leading healthcare ratings company. El Camino Hospital received HealthGrades 2008 Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence™, shared this year by only 269 of the nation’s 4,971 non-federal hospitals.

According to the HealthGrades study, patients admitted to a hospital receiving this award are, on average, 27 percent less likely to face mortality and 5 percent less likely to suffer from a major complication. HealthGrades estimates that if all patients were treated at Distinguished Hospitals, 171,424 lives could have been saved and 9,671 post-operative complications could have been avoided during the three years studied.

“The gap between top-performing hospitals and others persists,” said Samantha Collier, MD, HealthGrades’ chief medical officer. “But Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence like El Camino Hospital have proven that it is possible to consistently deliver top-notch medical care, across a range of procedures.”

In fact, El Camino Hospital has been nationally recognized with top ratings by HealthGrades across a several specialty areas in the past year. Its cardiac services ranked best in California and it received 5-star ratings in bariatric surgery, women’s health services, stroke care and pulmonary/respiratory services.

“We are consistently focused on improving quality,” said Ken Graham, El Camino Hospital CEO. “Independent studies that provide us with a way to measure and compare ourselves with other hospitals keep us focused on delivering the best service to every each and every patient. That’s our most important goal.”

The HealthGrades study shows that Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence are improving their patient outcomes at a greater rate in more procedures and diagnoses than all other hospitals, lowering risk-adjusted mortality rates over the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by an average of 15%.

“At El Camino Hospital, everyone from the board of directors to individual clinicians is engaged in our mission of delivering high quality care to patients,” said Eric Pifer, Chief Medical Information Officer. “We believe in collaboration at all levels. For example, we participate in regional and national groups where we discuss and share best practices for specific areas. We subsequently create teams to implement those practices.”

Pifer cited two recent initiatives resulting from these efforts. In one case critical care nurses and physicians were able to eliminate all cases of hospital-acquired pneumonia in Intensive Care during the past year. Another initiative involved implementing a Code Help program–the first in the Bay Area–that allows a patient’s family to dial for help from the patient’s room and get highly trained rapid response nurses to come evaluate the patient immediately. “Sometimes, even minutes count and this gives family members a higher level of comfort that their loved one will get attention quickly when needed,” Pifer said. “It’s one more example of how we strive to improve not only outcomes, but the patient’s experience, as well.”

HealthGrades’ annual ratings are outcome-based, developed through independent analysis of the clinical quality performance of all non-federal hospitals across the country in 27 procedures and diagnoses. In the Distinguished Hospital Study, the company reviewed tens of millions of hospitalization records from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, over the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. All hospitals that participate in the Medicare program were part of the independent study. Hospitals that receive the HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence are those hospitals that rank in the top five percent when all 27 individual scores are aggregated into an overall score.

To learn more about El Camino Hospital and its services, visit our web site at www.elcaminohospital.org. For a physician referral, visit our web site or call the El Camino Health Line at 800-216-5556.