Methodist Charlton Medical Center in Dallas receives top maternity care excellence award

by PegNews wire

Methodist Charlton Medical Center announced that it has once again received the highest rating – five-stars – for maternity care services, and the 2009/2010 Maternity Care Excellence Award™ from HealthGrades, the nation’s leading independent healthcare ratings organization. This marks the third consecutive year the hospital has achieved these top distinctions, and is the only central Dallas area hospital to sustain the achievements.

Wide gaps in quality outcomes for maternity care persist, according to a new study released by HealthGrades. Among the findings are that the nation’s best performing hospitals have complication rates for vaginal and C-section deliveries, as well as neonatal mortality rates, that are dramatically below those of poorly performing hospitals. The Sixth Annual HealthGrades Women’s Health in American Hospitals study analyzes patient outcomes for maternity care and in-hospital treatment of 16 other procedures/diagnoses concerning women’s health.

“We are extremely proud of our doctors, nurses and support staff for sustaining this achievement for three consecutive years,” says Methodist Charlton President Zach Chandler. “We encourage patients to take an active role in their health care, and part of that process is to seek hospitals with the best quality outcomes when making health care decisions. This recognition from HealthGrades demonstrates that Methodist Charlton is not only providing compassionate care using some of the latest technology available, but we are also providing our patients with quality care.”

Study findings include the following:

· The difference in quality of care between maternity programs is substantial for both vaginal and C-section deliveries: the best-performing hospitals had 52% fewer maternal complications among women who had vaginal births compared to poor-performing hospitals and 76% fewer complications among women who had C-sections. Patient-choice C-sections had the largest difference at 84% between best- and poor-performing hospitals.

· If all hospitals, among the 19 states studied, performed at the level of the best-performing hospitals from 2005 through 2007, 182,129 women may have avoided developing one or more in-hospital major obstetrics complications.

· Best-performing hospitals had a 56% lower weight-stratified neonatal mortality compared to poor-performing hospitals.

· C-section rates average approximately 32% among the 19 states studied.

In the study, HealthGrades analyzed approximately 13 million hospital delivery and neonate records from 2005 through 2007 in more than 1,500 hospitals in 19 all-payer states for this study and identified 218 hospitals as being five-star rated in maternity care. The full study can be found at www.healthgrades.com.

Source: Methodist Health System