Tulsa OK  (October 15, 2007) – A HealthGrades study of hospital quality in America finds a gap in quality between the best and poorest-performing hospitals, with SouthCrest Hospital identified as among the best in Oklahoma for cardiac surgery and coronary interventional procedures.  HealthGrades is the nation’s leading independent ratings company.

According to The Tenth Annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study, SouthCrest Hospital is recognized with the following:

• Ranked #1 in Oklahoma for Cardiac Surgery
• Ranked #1 in Oklahoma for Coronary Interventional Procedures
• Ranked Among the Top 5 in Oklahoma for Overall Cardiac Services
• Ranked Among the Top 5 in Oklahoma for Cardiology Services

“Since opening eight years ago, SouthCrest has been among the top hospitals in Oklahoma when it comes to delivering quality heart care,” says Anthony R. Young, President and CEO of SouthCrest Hospital. “Our record speaks for itself in being recognized as the leading cardiac surgery program and coronary interventional program in Oklahoma for 2008, according to HealthGrades. We encourage patients and their families to explore a hospital’s quality outcomes when choosing a healthcare provider. Healthgrades.com is a wonderful resource to review comparisons of all Oklahoma hospitals,” says Young.

 “Our research shows that while the overall quality of hospital care in America is improving, the gap between the best-performing hospitals and the worst persists,” said Dr. Samantha Collier, HealthGrades’ chief medical officer and author of the study. “This persistent gap makes it imperative that anyone planning to be admitted to a hospital do their homework and seek out highly rated facilities.”

The Tenth Annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study identifies key trends in the quality of care provided by approximately 5,000 hospitals nationwide. HealthGrades researchers analyzed Medicare discharges from every U.S. hospital between 2004 and 2006. Risk-adjusted mortality and complication rates were calculated and hospitals were assigned a 1-star (poor), 3-star (as expected), or 5-star (best) quality rating for 28 diagnoses and procedures from heart failure to hip replacement to pneumonia. Individual hospital quality results from this study are available at www.healthgrades.com.

Among the study’s key findings:

• Large gaps persist between the “best” and the “worst” hospitals across all procedures and conditions studied. Five-star rated hospitals had significantly lower risk-adjusted mortality across all three years studied.

• Across all procedures and conditions studied, there was an approximate 71 percent lower chance of dying in a 5-star rated hospital compared to a 1-star rated hospital.

• Across all procedures and conditions studied, there was an approximate 52 percent lower chance of dying in a 5-star rated hospital compared to the U.S. hospital average.

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 some of the nation’s largest 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.

About SouthCrest Hospital

All private rooms, a bright new facility and room service by trained chefs are just a few of the things that make SouthCrest Hospital unique. The hospital provides the latest state-of-the-art technology in a smaller, community setting that also allows patients and families the ease of finding their way around the hospital. Patient Satisfaction scores at SouthCrest indicate that patients are consistently "very satisfied" as compared to other area hospitals.

SouthCrest sits just off Highway 169 and 91st Street, which makes it convenient to serve the Metropolitan Tulsa area of 1.2 million residents. With over 1000 employees and 700 physicians, the hospital offers a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services including maternity, cardiology, emergency, orthopedics, and surgery. The hospital is committed to evidence-based medicine as reflected in the hospital’s outstanding quality data reported on the Medicare/Medicaid website, www.hospitalcompare.org in addition to HealthGrades recent ratings.

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