Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center has received the honored 2012 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award announced Lourdes Health System President and CEO, Alexander J. Hatala. This award places the medical center among an elite group of only 263 hospitals to receive the designation, which collectively represents the top 5 percent of U.S. hospitals in the country for patient safety.

Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center is one of only 5 hospitals in New Jersey and the only hospital in Southern New Jersey to receive the prestigious award by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings company in the U.S.

"This award is a tremendous reflection of Lourdes commitment by our staff and physicians to create a safe environment for our patients," said Hatala. "I am proud to see Lourdes recognized for the great work and efforts we put forth each day to ensure our patients and the services we provide them are met with the safest, highest quality of care possible."

To identify the 2012 Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients, HealthGrades analyzed approximately 40 million hospitalization records from 5,000 hospitals nationwide that participate in the Medicare program.



Patients at hospitals in the top 5 percent experienced 48 percent fewer patient safety incidents in one of the 13 preventable safety events analyzed compared to hospitals in the bottom 5 percent. If all hospitals performed at this level, HealthGrades estimates that 254,000 patient safety events and 56,367 deaths among Medicare patients could have been avoided.



The HealthGrades study analyzed the following patient safety events:

• Death in procedures where mortality is usually very low
• Pressure or bed sores acquired in hospital
• Death following a serious complication after surgery
• Foreign object left in body during a procedure
• Collapsed lung due to procedure or surgery in or around chest
• Catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at hospital
• Hip fracture following surgery
• Hemorrhage or hematoma resulting from procedure or surgery
• Electrolyte and fluid imbalance following surgery
• Respiratory failure following surgery
• Deep blood clots in lungs or legs following surgery
• Sepsis following surgery
• Breakdown of abdominal incision site

"From improving communication to implementing protocols to make surgery safer, hospitals across the country are working harder to reduce preventable patient safety events," said Kristin Reed, MPH, vice president of hospital quality programs at HealthGrades and author of the study.

"Hospitals like Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center are not only setting the bar for high standards of patient safety but also serving as an example for other hospitals across the nation."



HealthGrades uses Medicare inpatient data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) database and Patient Safety Indicator software from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to calculate event rates for 13 indicators of patient safety for all of the nation's hospitals. All analysis was based on data from 2008 to 2010. These indicators identify the best-performing hospitals, which represent the top 5% of all U.S. hospitals and are this year's HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients. HealthGrades developed this award to give patients more information about choosing a hospital.



More information on HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award and the ratings methodology is available at HealthGrades.com.



About Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center



Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center is a regional referral center, known for providing the most sophisticated levels of care. For more than five decades, the medical center has been committed to enhancing the health and well-being of southern New Jersey's residents.

The 410-bed teaching hospital offers many specialty services, and is among the largest providers of cardiac services in the Delaware Valley. It is home to the Regional Perinatal Center for high-risk mothers and infants; the Lourdes Regional Rehabilitation Center; the Southern New Jersey Regional Dialysis Center; and the Center for Organ Transplantation. Lourdes is the only hospital in the state approved to perform kidney, pancreas and liver transplants.

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For media inquiries, please contact Lauren Markin at Markinl@lourdesnet.org or (856) 705-1375.