St. Joseph's Health Top 10% in Nation for Joint Replacement Three Years in a Row

Syracuse, NY (March 2, 2017) – Joint Replacement at St. Joseph’s Health is among the top 10% in the nation according to this year’s evaluation from Healthgrades®, the leading online resource helping consumers make informed decisions in order to find the right doctor, the right hospital for the right care. St. Joseph’s was also named a Five-Star achiever for Total Knee Replacement in 2017, the only hospital in the region* to have this designation for 11 years in a row (2007-2017).

This achievement was recently released by Healthgrades and is featured in their 2017 Report to the Nation. The new report demonstrates how clinical performance continues to differ dramatically between hospitals regionally and nationally.

“This recognition of our Joint Replacement surgeries and services is huge because knee and hip joint replacement surgeries are two of the most common surgeries performed in the United States,” said Seth Greenky, MD, orthopedic surgeon and medical director for the orthopedic service line at St. Joseph’s Health. “There are over 1.1 million procedures done each year in the United States. And with the rise in the number of baby boomers reaching retirement & increasing demands on athletes, the number of total joint replacement surgeries is expected to increase each year.”

St. Josephs has received the Healthgrades Joint Replacement Excellence Award™ for three years in a row (2015-2017), has been named among the top 10% in the nation for Joint Replacement for three years in a row (2015-2017), and has been a Five-Star Recipient for Total Knee Replacement for 11 years in a row (2007-2017). The exceptional care and latest technology offered at St. Joseph’s has also been recognized by U.S. News & World Report, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, and several other national awards.

For the 2017 Report to the Nation, Healthgrades compared Specialty Excellence Award Recipients as a group, to all other hospitals as a group, and found that:

• Patients treated at hospitals receiving the Joint Replacement Specialty Excellence Award have, on average, 55.6% lower risk of experiencing a complication while in the hospital than if they were treated in hospitals that did not receive the award.
• And patients treated at hospitals which did not receive the Joint Replacement Specialty Excellence Award have, on average, 2.25 times more likely to experience one or more complications in the hospital than if they were treated at hospitals that did receive the award.

These statistics are based on Healthgrades analysis of MedPAR data for years 2013 through 2015 and represent 3-year estimates for Medicare patients only.

(*Region is Syracuse, NY CBSA as defined by the federal government's Office of Management and Budget.)

“Consumers have many choices regarding where to receive their healthcare, which is why it’s so vital that they understand outcomes performance at specific hospitals for specific conditions and procedures,” said Evan Marks, Chief Strategy Officer, Healthgrades. “Those hospitals that have achieved a specialty excellence distinction in Joint Replacement from Healthgrades exemplify a commitment to exceptional quality of patient care.”

About Healthgrades

For this analysis, Healthgrades evaluated approximately 45 million Medicare inpatient records for nearly 4,500 short-term acute care hospitals nationwide, assessing hospital performance relative to each of 32 common conditions and procedures, as well as an evaluation of comparative outcomes in appendectomy and bariatric surgery using all-payer data provided by 18 states. Healthgrades recognizes a hospital’s quality achievements for cohort-specific performance, specialty area performance, and overall clinical quality. Individual procedure or condition cohorts are designated as 5-star (statistically significantly better than expected), 3-star (not statistically different from expected) and 1-star (statistically significantly worse than expected) categories. The complete Healthgrades 2017 Report to the Nation and detailed study methodology, can be found at www.healthgrades.com/quality.

About St. Joseph’s Health

St. Joseph’s Health is a non-profit regional health care system based in Syracuse, N.Y., providing services to patients throughout Central New York and northern Pennsylvania. From primary to specialty to home care, to our Magnet-recognized hospital, and in collaboration with our community partners, St. Joseph's Health is advancing the health of the communities we serve through an expanding range of healthcare services to ensure our patients achieve optimum long-term health. Ranked by Consumer Reports among the top 15 heart surgery centers in the country, U.S. News “Best Regional Hospital” and a 15-time winner of the National Research Corporation Consumer Choice award, St. Joseph’s is widely recognized for quality, value and delivering the highest patient satisfaction. St. Joseph’s Health is affiliated with Franciscan Companies and St. Joseph’s Physicians and is a part of Trinity Health.

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