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Northwest Hospital & Medical Center announced today that HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization, has named the hospital’s cardiac surgery program the best in Seattle, Bellevue and Tacoma for 2010. The recognition is based HealthGrades’ twelfth annual Hospital Quality in America study, released on October 13. The study also gave Northwest Hospital five-star ratings in stroke, heart valve replacement, pneumonia care and appendectomy.

"Heart disease is the single leading cause of death in America, so it is critical to our mission of raising the long-term health status of our community to offer both outstanding diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, as well as care and education to prevent it," said Bill Schneider, Northwest Hospital CEO. "We are pleased to be recognized as the top cardiac surgery program in our region, and proud of the efforts of our outstanding staff in achieving excellent outcomes for our patients."

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. This year’s study found:

• Across all 17 procedures and diagnoses in which mortality was studied, there was an approximate 72% lower chance of dying in a 5-star rated hospital compared to a 1-star rated hospital, and a 52% lower chance of dying in a 5-star hospital compared with the national average.



• If all hospitals performed at the level of a 5-star rated hospital across the 17 procedures and diagnoses studied, 224,537 Medicare lives could potentially have been saved from 2006 through 2008.