Billings Clinic Receives National Quality Award For Orthopedic Surgery

Award is Based on Study Which Finds Patients Treated at Five-Star Hospitals are 80% Less Likely to Experience a Major Complication

Billings, MT – Billings Clinic is the only Montana Hospital to be recognized for seven years in a row as among the top 10% in the nation for overall orthopedic care by a new study released today by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization. The HealthGrades study evaluates objective patient outcomes in the nation’s 5,000 hospitals.

This national ranking is recognized by HealthGrades Orthopedic Surgery Excellence Award for 2010 and is a result of Five-Star Ratings for Total Hip Replacement, Hip Fracture Repair and Spinal Fusion Surgery.

The HealthGrades study, the largest annual report of its kind, analyzed patient outcomes in nearly 40 million Medicare hospitalization records from 5,000 hospitals over the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. Among the findings related to inhospital complications in this year’s study are:

• Across all procedures in which complications were studied, there was a 79.69% lower chance of experiencing one or more inhospital complications in a 5-star rated hospital compared to a 1-star rated hospital.
• Across all procedures studied, there was a 61.22% lower chance of experiencing one or more inhospital complications in a 5-star rated hospital compared to the U.S. hospital average.
• If all hospitals performed at the level of a 5-star rated hospital, 110,687 orthopedic inhospital complications may have been avoided among Medicare patients over the three years studied.

HealthGrades hospital ratings and awards reflect the track record of patient outcomes at hospitals in the form of mortality and complication rates. HealthGrades rates hospitals independently based on data that hospitals submit to the federal government. No hospitals can opt in or out of being rated, and no hospital pays to be rated.

For 28 procedures and treatments, HealthGrades issues star ratings that reflect the mortality and complication rates for each category of care. Hospitals receiving a 5-star rating have mortality or complication rates that are bellow the national average, to a statistically significant degree. A 3-star rating means the hospital performs as expected. One-star ratings indicate the hospital’s mortality or complication rates in that procedure or treatment are statistically higher than average. Because the risk profiles of patient populations at hospitals are not alike, HealthGrades risk-adjusts the data to allow for apples-to-apples comparisons.

The new 2010 HealthGrades hospital ratings are posted at HealthGrades’ public Web site.