Specialty Excellence AwardTM Methodology 2007 5
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May not be reprinted or reproduced without permission from Health Grades, Inc.
Maternity Care
The Maternity Care specialty area rating is based on:
·
Volume of vaginal and cesarean section (C-section) single live-born deliveries
·
Maternal complication rate for single live-born deliveries for women undergoing vaginal delivery
and C-section delivery for clinical reasons
·
Maternal complication rate among women undergoing "patient-choice" or non-clinically indicated C-
sections
·
Newborn mortality rate stratified into nine birth weight categories
The four factors are weighted using predetermined weights based on consensus from a physician panel.
With the exception of the volume score, percentiles are calculated separately for hospitals with and without
a newborn intensive care unit (NICU). Each factor's percentile score is multiplied by its weight and then
summed to create an overall score.
To be ranked, a hospital must be located in one of the 19 all-payer
states that provide maternity care data.
Women's Health
The Women's Health specialty area rating is based upon outcomes in two areas:
·
Maternity care
·
Cardiac/stroke mortality outcomes for women
For Cardiac/stroke for women, HealthGrades analyzes risk-adjusted mortality rates for the following six
procedures/diagnoses for each hospital's female patients:
·
Coronary bypass surgery
·
Heart attack
·
Heart failure
·
Interventional procedures (PTCA/angioplasty, stent, atherectomy)
·
Stroke
·
Valve replacement surgery
The maternity care percentile score is added to the cardiac/stroke percentile score to create a women's
health score for each hospital. To receive a rating in this specialty area, a hospital had to have an overall
rating for each area and be located in one of the 19 all-payer states that provide women's health data..
