Hospital Organ-Transplantation Centers Rated by HealthGrades for the First Time

GOLDEN, Colo.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--The top-rated hospitals for organ transplantation are being identified for the first time today by HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization. Based on patient outcomes, quality data for each of the 266 hospitals that perform transplants have been made public at www.healthgrades.com to help patients in need of kidney, lung, heart and liver transplants research and choose a transplant center.

“As with other HealthGrades hospital ratings, these are based on objective patient outcomes, giving patients a sound basis for evaluating transplant centers.”

“More than 26,000 kidney, lung, heart and liver transplants occur annually, and now patients have a resource to compare patient outcomes and other criteria at programs across the country,” said HealthGrades’ Rick May, MD. “As with other HealthGrades hospital ratings, these are based on objective patient outcomes, giving patients a sound basis for evaluating transplant centers.”

All hospitals in the U.S. with transplantation programs have the following information displayed on HealthGrades.com using data calculated by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR):

• One-year risk-adjusted patient survival;
• Three-year risk-adjusted patient survival;
• One-year risk-adjusted graft survival;
• Three-year risk-adjusted graft survival;
• The rate at which waitlisted patients receive transplants; and
• Waitlist mortality.

Hospitals with transplant programs received HealthGrades Transplant Excellence Awards if they had a statistically significantly higher three-year survival rate. Award recipients also had to have waitlist mortality that was either not significantly different than expected or was significantly lower than expected based on the SRTR calculations. Of the 266 hospitals evaluated, 20 hospitals received this award for 22 programs.

The recipients are as follows*:

HealthGrades Kidney Transplant Excellence Award had 10 recipients out of 266 hospitals evaluated (top three percent):

• University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, Calif.
• Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, Calif.
• Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Ga.
• Clarian Health/Methodist Hospital/Indiana Univ./Riley, Indianapolis, Ind.
• University of Kentucky Medical Center, Lexington, Ky.
• University of North Carolina Hospitals, Chapel Hill, N.C.
• NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, N.Y.+
• Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, Penn.
• Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Penn.
• Scott and White Memorial Hospital, Temple, Tx.

HealthGrades Liver Transplant Excellence Award had 6 recipients out of 134 hospitals evaluated (top four percent):

• California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, Calif.
• University of California San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco, Calif.
• Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, Fla.
• Rochester Methodist Hospital (Mayo Clinic), Rochester, Minn.
• The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio
• University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, Madison, Wis.+

HealthGrades Lung Transplant Excellence Award had 4 recipients out of 73 hospitals evaluated (top five percent):

• Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Mich.
• University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview, Minneapolis, Minn.
• NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, New York, N.Y.+
• University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, Madison, Wis.+

HealthGrades Heart Transplant Excellence Award had 2 recipients out of 141 hospitals evaluated (top one percent):

• University of Southern California University Hospital, Los Angeles, Calif.
• University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, Mich.

+Denotes transplant centers who received the award for more than one organ type.

The following is an overview of transplant activity in the U.S. in 2008 according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients:

Organ		Number on Waitlist at End of 2008		Number of Transplants in 2008
Kidney		80,972		16,517
Heart		2,722		2,163
Liver		16,450		6,318
Lung		2,029		1,478

The ratings of individual hospitals, as well as the full methodology of the analysis, can be found at http://www.healthgrades.com. For additional information about each of these transplant programs, or about the methods used for computing the measures above, please visit the SRTR website at www.ustransplant.org. The SRTR is not in any way involved in determining award status.

HealthGrades

Health Grades, Inc. (Nasdaq: HGRD) is the leading independent healthcare ratings organization, providing quality ratings, profiles and cost information on the nation's hospitals, physicians, nursing homes and prescription drugs. Millions of patients and many of the nation’s largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades’ quality ratings, advisory services and decision-support resources. The HealthGrades Network of Web sites, including HealthGrades.com and WrongDiagnosis.com, is a top-ten health property according to comScore and is the Internet's leading destination for patients choosing providers. More information on how HealthGrades guides America to better healthcare can be found at http://www.healthgrades.com.

*The HealthGrades Transplant Excellence Award list is © Copyright 2009 by Health Grades, Inc. and may not be used for marketing by hospitals or reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without its express written permission.

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