10/19/06, CMH in Top Five for Joint Replacement
Community Memorial Hospital has been ranked among the top five hospitals in New York State for joint replacement surgery, the best in the Utica area and the only 5-star rated hospital in Total Knee Replacement in the Utica area. The 2007 rankings are the result of a comprehensive study released in October by HealthGrades, the nation's leading healthcare rating company.
"Community Memorial Hospital's reputation for orthopedic excellence is well-known even beyond Central New York," said President and CEO David W. Felton. "The results of the HealthGrades study highlight the excellent work of Hamilton Orthopaedic Surgery & Sports Medicine and Community Memorial's Medical Staff, Nursing Staff and ancillary services. The entire hospital can take pride in this recognition and our patients can rest assured of quality joint replacement close to home."
HealthGrades independently analyzed and objectively assessed the clinical outcomes and quality of more than 5,000 hospitals from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as part of its ninth annual Hospital Quality in America Study. The 40 million hospitalization records utilized in compiling the 2007 ratings are publicly available and licensed from the federal government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The HealthGrades ratings take into account varying degrees of patient severity from hospital to hospital and measure whether patient outcomes for each of more than two dozen procedures and diagnoses are better than expected (5-Star), as expected (3-Star) or worse than expected (1-Star).
Burton Niles of Oneida knew exactly where he wanted to have his hip replaced early this fall. His grandson Jimmy Smith, an outstanding football player at Oneida High, had had both knees repaired, one as a sophomore and the other as a junior by Dr. Raymond Meeks of Hamilton Orthopaedic Surgery & Sports Medicine, and came back to be named player of the year as a senior.
"You don't do that on parts that weren't fixed right," says Niles, who turned to Dr. Meeks to operate on his hip. "The staff was fantastic. I don't think you could do better than Community Memorial Hospital."
"For Community Memorial Hospital to rank among the nation's best reflects the efforts of everybody in the organization, and should be very comforting to area residents," said Samantha Collier, M.D., HealthGrades' vice president of medical affairs. "Consumers continue to ask for more and better information to help them in their health care decision making. Our analysis provides an apples-to-apples comparison of hospital performance by procedure or diagnosis, and it is evident there is significant variance between individual hospitals."
The 2007 HealthGrades ratings for all hospitals nationwide are available, free of charge, on HealthGrades' consumer web site, www.healthgrades.com. More than three million individuals and employees of more than 125 major employers visit the HealthGrades web site every 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.
HealthGrades (Nasdaq: HGRD) is the leading healthcare ratings company, providing ratings and profiles of hospitals, nursing homes and physicians to consumers, corporations, health plans and hospitals. Millions of consumers and hundreds of the nation's largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades' independent ratings to make healthcare decisions based on the quality of care. More information on the company can be found at www.healthgrades.com.
