Orthopaedic Services Rated #1 In Tampa Bay
University Community Hospital was named the #1 rated hospital in the Tampa Bay area for overall orthopaedic surgical services, according to a new study recently released by HealthGrades, nation’s leading healthcare ratings company.
 
“University Community Hospital’s ratings place it in the top 5% in the nation for orthopaedics, thereby achieving five-star ratings for overall orthopaedic surgery, joint replacement surgery, spinal surgery, total knee replacement surgery and hip fracture repair ,” said Larry Archbell, chief executive officer for UCH. “This recognition—by an independent and objective company—validates the quality of care that the hospital’s physicians, nurses and staff deliver to patients and families on a daily basis.” 

As part of its 10th annual Hospital Quality in America Study, HealthGrades independently analyzed 5,000 hospitals in all 50 states and the District of Columbia for its 2008 ratings, which assessed clinical outcomes. The over 41 million hospitalization records utilized 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 andmeasure whether patient outcomes (mortality or major complication rates) for each of more than two dozen procedures and diagnoses are statistically better than expected (5-Star), as expected (3-Star) or worse than expected (1-Star). 
 
“HealthGrades helps patients make better and more informed healthcare choices,” added Archbell. “With patients having a greater stake in their healthcare purchasing decisions, it is important for them to know that there is a tremendous difference in clinical outcomes between hospitals.”
 
The 2008 HealthGrades ratings for all hospitals nationwide are available, free of charge, on the organization’s award-winning consumer website, 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.