Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center announced today that its superior clinical performance ranks it among America's 50 Best Hospitals for the second year in a row, according to HealthGrades®, the nation's leading independent healthcare ratings company.
The HealthGrades America's 50 Best Hospitals designation is the only national hospital quality rating based solely on clinical outcomes, recognizing hospitals that have demonstrated superior clinical quality over an eight-year time period.
HealthGrades analyzed tens of millions of Medicare patient records from 1999-2006 to identify this elite group of world class facilities. These hospitals have achieved higher survival rates and lower complication rates, not in just one or two clinical specialties, but across 27 different medical procedures and diagnoses, from cardiac care to orthopedic surgery, consistently ranking among the top five percent in the nation for overall clinical outcomes.
"One of our key goals at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center is to ensure we consistently provide safe and effective care for every patient who seeks treatment at our hospital," said David Pettit, CEO of PBGMC.
"To achieve this goal, we have made a sincere and dedicated commitment, in collaboration with our medical and other clinical staff, to have an unrelenting focus on quality, therefore ensuring that our patients receive the best outcomes possible."
In addition, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center ranks among the top 5% in the nation for overall cardiac care and cardiology services and the top 10% for cardiac surgery and coronary interventional procedures.
The recipients of HealthGrades America's 50 Best Hospitals were selected by identifying those hospitals that have also received the HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical ExcellenceTM the most consecutive times from 2008 and previous years. Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center has received this prestigious national quality award from HealthGrades 6 years in a row.
In its most recent clinical study, issued on January 31, HealthGrades analyzed tens of millions of Medicare patient records from 4,971 hospitals over a three-year period (2004-06). HealthGrades found that patients admitted to Distinguished Hospitals are, on average, 27 percent more likely to survive and five percent less likely to have a major complication.
HealthGrades also 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. This is consistent with Distinguished Hospital studies conducted in previous years.
About The Hospital
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center is a 199-bed acute-care medical and surgical facility serving the health care needs of Northern Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast for nearly 40 years. Specialty services include nationally recognized comprehensive cardiac care, orthopedics and joint replacement, 24-hour emergency services, outpatient surgery, cardiac and physical rehabilitation and diagnostic imaging.