UPLAND, PA (Oct. 16, 2006) – Crozer-Chester Medical Center announced today it ranks among in the top 5 percent of all hospitals nationally for Heart Surgery and among the top 10 percent of all hospitals nationally for Overall Cardiac Care and Coronary Interventions according to a comprehensive study released by HealthGrades, the nation’s leading healthcare ratings company. In addition, Crozer-Chester Medical Center is a recipient of the Specialty Excellence Award for Cardiac Care and Heart Surgery.
Crozer-Chester Medical Center also received five-star ratings for clinical excellence in Coronary Bypass Surgery, Valve Replacement Surgery, Coronary Interventions and Treatment of Heart Attack according to the 2007 HealthGrades’ ratings.
“Crozer has always demonstrated a commitment to providing excellent cardiac care, and these new HealthGrades quality ratings validate that commitment,” says Joan K. Richards, president and chief operating officer of Crozer-Keystone Health System. “I salute all of the physicians, nurses and other employees who have worked together to create such an excellent program.”
As part of its ninth annual Hospital Quality in America Study, HealthGrades independently analyzed more than 5,000 hospitals in all 50 states and the District of Columbia for its 2007 ratings, objectively assessing their clinical outcomes and quality. The 40 million hospitalization records utilized in the assessment are publicly available and licensed from the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The HealthGrades ratings take into account varying degrees of patient severity from hospital to hospital and measure whether patient outcomes for each of more than two dozen procedures and diagnoses are better than expected (5-Star), as expected (3-Star) or worse than expected (1-Star).
“Consumers continue to ask for more and better information to help them in their health care decision making,” said Samantha Collier, M.D., HealthGrades’ vice president of medical affairs. “Our analysis provides an apples-to-apples comparison of hospital performance by procedure or diagnosis, and it is evident there is significant variance between individual hospitals. For Crozer-Chester Medical Center to rank among the nation’s best reflects the efforts of everybody in the organization, and should be very comforting to area residents.”
The 2007 HealthGrades ratings for all hospitals nationwide are available, free of charge, on the organization’s award-winning consumer Web site, located at www.healthgrades.com.
Since 1992, Crozer’s dedicated heart surgery team has performed more than 3,000 surgeries with an excellent record of success. Among the surgeries performed include “off-pump” bypass surgery, repair of defective heart valves, and emergency or scheduled repairs of life-threatening conditions of the aorta.
Karl Grunewald, M.D., chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Crozer, says, “Crozer’s strong ratings from HealthGrades in cardiac surgery are a tribute to the commitment to excellence of the entire heart surgery team at Crozer. We work together to ensure patient safety and elicit good outcomes — giving our patients a chance to successfully return to the standard of living they enjoyed before surgery.”
For patients suffering from blocked arteries, Crozer offers the latest procedures in the area of interventional cardiology, performed in the medical center’s new cardiac catheterization labs. These procedures include cardiac catheterization, angioplasty (including emergency primary angioplasty), atherectomy, and stenting (including drug-eluting stents).
Ancil Jones, M.D., chief of the Division of Cardiology at Crozer, says, “We’re proud that our interventional cardiology program has again been recognized for excellence by HealthGrades. Our patients trust Crozer because of our experience. We’ve performed more than 17,000 cardiac catheterization procedures, more than 5,000 angioplasties and more than 1,000 primary angioplasties since we began performing these procedures in 1992.”
Cardiac patients who are initially diagnosed at other Crozer-Keystone hospitals can return to those hospitals for post-procedure care and rehabilitation. In addition, cardiologists from other hospitals — such as Edward LaPorta, M.D., chief of the Section of Cardiology at DCMH, and Samuel Ruby, M.D., chief of the Section of Cardiology at Taylor — come to Crozer to perform procedures.
For more information about Crozer-Chester Medical Center and the Crozer-Keystone Health System, call 1-800-CK-HEALTH or visit www.crozer.org.
About HealthGrades
HealthGrades (Nasdaq:HGRD) is the leading health care ratings company, providing ratings and profiles of hospitals, nursing homes and physicians to consumers, corporations, health plans and hospitals. Millions of consumers and hundreds of the nation’s largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades’ independent ratings to make healthcare decisions based on the quality of care. More information on the company can be found at http://www.healthgrades.com. Media inquiries can be directed to Scott Shapiro at (720) 963-6584 or sshapiro@healthgrades.com.