Health Grades Hospital Quality Guide Methodology 2006 Jan 04 (Page 2)

Hospital Quality Guide Methodology 2006 2

May not be reprinted or reproduced without permission from Health Grades, Inc.

To help consumers evaluate and compare hospital performance, HealthGrades analyzed patient outcome
data for virtually every hospital in the country. HealthGrades analyzed and assigned quality ratings to
different service areas. The rating of each service area is a combined rating of one or more medical issues
(e.g., heart attack). The following descriptions show how HealthGrades calculated each of the following
service area ratings.

Service Area Ratings

Cardiac

Critical Care

Gastrointestinal

General Surgery

Orthopedic

Pulmonary

Stroke

Vascular

Cardiac

The Cardiac service area rating is based on:

Coronary bypass surgery

Valve replacement surgery

Coronary interventional procedures

Heart attack

Heart failure

Atrial fibrillation

The Cardiac service area rating is a weighted star average for these medical issues, based on hospital
volume. The star averages are based on inhospital mortality, inhospital +1 month mortality, and inhospital
+6 month mortality ratings. To receive a rating in this service area, a hospital had to provide coronary
bypass surgery and have star ratings in four of the five other medical issues.

Critical Care

The Critical Care service area rating is based on:

Diabetic acidosis & coma

Sepsis

Pulmonary embolism

Respiratory failure

Leapfrog's ICU specialist staffing

HealthGrades first calculates the average star ratings for sepsis and pulmonary embolism for inhospital
mortality, inhospital +1 month mortality, and inhospital +6 month mortality; and the average star rating for
diabetic acidosis & coma for inhospital and inhospital + 1 month mortality. We then convert Leapfrog's ICU
specialist staffing to a numeric value. The Critical Care service area rating is a weighted average of these
values plus respiratory failure. To receive a rating in this service area, a hospital had to have star ratings in
all four critical care areas and have submitted their Leapfrog ICU specialist staffing data.

Health Grades - Hospital Quality Guide Methodology 2006 Jan 04 (Page 2)