Pulmonary Services cited in Ninth Annual HealthGrades Study  

Piedmont Medical Center has been ranked among the top 10 percent in the nation for Pulmonary Services, according to a comprehensive study released by HealthGrades, the nation’s leading healthcare ratings company.  The following recognitions were released Oct. 16:   Recipient of the 2007 HealthGrades Pulmonary Excellence Award™   Ranked Among the Top 10% in the Nation for Pulmonary Services – two years in a row (2006, 2007)   Received the Highest Possible Five-Star Rating for Treatment of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) three years in a row (2005, 2006, 2007)   Ranked Among the Best (#2) in South Carolina for Overall Pulmonary Services (2007)  

“Around the clock, our healthcare team at Piedmont Medical Center concentrates on delivering quality care, and our staff and physicians work together to constantly raise the bar,” says Charles Miller, president and CEO. “To receive this designation from HealthGrades two years in a row is extremely gratifying because it demonstrates that our efforts are paying off and others are recognizing them.”      

As part of its ninth annual Hospital Quality in America Study, HealthGrades independently analyzed more than 5,000 hospitals in all 50 states and the District of Columbia for its 2007 ratings, objectively assessing their clinical outcomes and quality. The 40 million hospitalization records used in the assessment 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).  “Consumers continue to ask for more and better information to help them in their health care decision making,” said Samantha Collier, M.D., HealthGrades’ vice president of medical affairs. “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.  For Piedmont Medical Center to rank among the nation’s best reflects the efforts of everybody in the organization, and should be very comforting to area residents.”            

The 2007 HealthGrades ratings for all hospitals nationwide are available, free of charge, on HealthGrades’ consumer Web site, located at 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.