Salem Hospital Ranked Number One for Cardiac Surgery - Two years in a row

Our continues improvement in cardiovascular quality has scored us very high on the soon to be released 2008-HealthGrades scores.

HealhGrades will be ranking Salem Hospital for 2008 as:

• Ranked #1 in Oregon for Cardiac Surgery - Two years in a row (2007, 2008)
• Ranked Among the Best (#2) - Top 5 in Oregon for Overall Cardiac Services
• Ranked Among the Best (#2) - Top 5 for Cardiology Services
• Ranked Among the Best (#3) - Top 5 for Coronary Interventional Procedures
• Five-Star Rated for Coronary Bypass Surgery - Two years in a row (2007, 2008)
• Five-Star Rated for Coronary Interventional Procedures
• Five-Staf Rated for Treatment of Heart Attack

Salem Hospital’s cardiac surgery program received five-star rating.

• A five-star rating indicates that the hospital has “better than expected” mortality or complication rates for that particular procedure. In other words, more people survive and have fewer complications than expected.
• Three stars indicate the care is “as expected.”
• One star indicates that the care is “worse than expected,” with above-average mortality or complication rates.

Learn more about Salem Hospital’s cardiac services.

The star ratings are based on an analysis of tens of millions of patient records over a three-year period that hospitals themselves submit to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as well as state governments. The records are “risk adjusted,” meaning that hospitals taking sicker patients are compared on equal footing with other hospitals. Hospital data are updated annually.

The 2008 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.

More than three million individuals and employees of 125 major employers and health plans visit HealthGrades each month to access quality information about hospitals, nursing homes and physicians. HealthGrades also provides consumers and payers with detailed assessments of hospitals’ patient-safety outcomes, based on indicators developed by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.