Penrose-St. Francis Health Services has been named a HealthGrades America’s 50 Best Hospital for 2010 in a report issued by HealthGrades, the leading independent health care ratings organization.The report, which analyzes objective patient outcomes at all 5,000 of the nation’s nonfederal hospitals, places Penrose-St. Francis Health Services in the top 1 percent of all hospitals in the nation. This is the third year in a row they have received this distinction and the only hospital in Colorado to receive this designation from HealthGrades – for all three years.According to the report, there is a wide variation in quality when comparing the Medicare patient outcomes of Penrose-St. Francis Health Services and the rest of the HealthGrades America’s 50 Best Hospitals against all others. Patients admitted to America’s 50 Best Hospitals are, on average, 27 percent less likely to die and 8 percent less likely to suffer from a major complication when compared with patients admitted to other hospitals. If all hospitals operated at the same level as the 50 Best, 164,964 deaths and 18,900 in-hospital complications could have potentially been prevented.”This award recognizes the outstanding physicians, nurses, associates and volunteers who are committed to providing world-class health care to the Pikes Peak Region, and I couldn’t be more proud of all of them,” said Margaret Sabin, president and CEO of Penrose-St. Francis Health Services. “Looking to the future, our goal is to move beyond providing the best possible ‘illness care’ to providing ‘wellness care;’ thereby, potentially reducing health care costs by helping our community to maintain good health.”In addition, Penrose-St. Francis is ranked No. 1 in Colorado for overall critical care services in 2010 and among the top 5 percent in the nation for pulmonary, GI medical treatment and critical care. The nation’s nearly 5,000 nonfederal hospitals were all included in the sweeping study, which examined mortality rates and complication rates from government data from 2006, 2007 and 2008.
