For the second consecutive year, Blanchard Valley Hospital has received the HealthGrades Joint Replacement Excellence Award for orthopedic joint replacement care.

In addition, Blanchard Valley Hospital's orthopedic program received the highest five-star ratings from HealthGrades for joint replacement, total knee replacement, total hip replacement and spinal fusion.

These honors were released today in a study by HealthGrades, the leading independent health care ratings organization.

The HealthGrades study, the largest annual report of its kind, analyzed patient outcomes in nearly 40 million Medicare hospitalization records from 5,000 hospitals over the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. Among the findings related to in-hospital complications in this year's study are:

. At five-star hospitals like Blanchard Valley, there was a 79.69% lower chance of experiencing one or more in-hospital complications across all procedures in which complications were studied, compared to one-star rated hospitals.
. At five-star hospitals like Blanchard Valley, here was a 61.22% lower chance of experiencing one or more in-hospital complications across all procedures studied, compared to the U.S. hospital average.
. If all hospitals performed at the level of a five-star rated hospital like Blanchard Valley, 110,687 orthopedic in-hospital complications may have been avoided among Medicare patients over the three years studied.

The 2010 HealthGrades hospital ratings were posted today at www.healthgrades.com, HealthGrades' public Web site.

HealthGrades Ratings
HealthGrades' hospital ratings and awards reflect the track record of patient outcomes at hospitals in the form of mortality and complication rates. HealthGrades rates hospitals independently based on data that hospitals submit to the federal government. No hospital can opt in or out of being rated, and no hospital pays to be rated.

For 28 procedures and treatments, HealthGrades issues star ratings that reflect the mortality and complication rates for each category of care. Hospitals receiving a five-star rating have mortality or complication rates that are below the national average, to a statistically significant degree. A three-star rating means the hospital performs as expected. One-star ratings indicate the hospital's mortality or complication rates in that procedure or treatment are statistically higher than average. Because the risk profiles of patient populations at hospitals are not alike, HealthGrades risk-adjusts the data to allow for apples-to-apples comparisons.

More information on today's HealthGrades study, including the complete methodology, can be found at www.healthgrades.com.