National Study Rates Hoag Hospital Among Best

October 16, 2006

Orthopedic Care, Stroke Care, General Surgery, Gastrointestinal Care, and Critical Care Cited in Ninth Annual HealthGrades Quality Study

Newport Beach, CA – Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian has again received high marks for clinical excellence in a comprehensive study released today by HealthGrades, the nation's leading health care ratings company.
The study ranks Hoag Hospital among the top five percent of all hospitals nationally for overall Orthopedic Care, Joint Replacement and Gastrointestinal Care, and among the top ten percent for Stroke Care, Critical Care and General Surgery. Hoag received Specialty Excellence Awards for these six service lines.

According to the 2007 HealthGrades study, Hoag Hospital also received five-star ratings for clinical excellence in sixteen procedures and diagnoses, including:

Coronary interventional procedures
Aortic Valve Replacement
Stroke Treatment
Prostatectomy
Critical care
Pulmonary embolism
Gastrointestinal surgery and procedures
Gastrointestinal bleed
Pancreatitis
Appendectomy
Joint replacement
Total knee replacement
Total hip replacement
Hip fracture repair
Partial hip replacement
Back and neck surgery (without spinal fusion)

"Hoag continues to be committed to providing the highest quality care to our patients," states Hoag President and CEO Richard Afable, MD, MPH. "This recognition for clinical excellence across so many service areas is a direct result of the outstanding performance and dedication of our physicians, nurses and staff throughout the organization. We are honored to be classified among the nation's best."

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 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 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 Hoag Hospital 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 the organization's award-winning consumer Web site, 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.

About HealthGrades
HealthGrades (Nasdaq:HGRD) is the leading health care ratings company, providing ratings and profiles of hospitals, nursing homes and physicians to consumers, corporations, health plans and hospitals. Millions of consumers and hundreds of the nation's largest employers, health plans and hospitals rely on HealthGrades' independent ratings to make health care decisions based on the quality of care. More information on the company can be found at http://www.healthgrades.com .