CEDAR RAPIDS — Patients hospitalized in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area have lower complications and death rates than most parts of the country, according to a new study that ranks the Corridor’s health care system third best in the nation.

HealthGrades, a health care research firm headquartered in Denver, based today’s report on a study of 5,000 hospitals nationwide.

Cedar Rapids, which also includes the Iowa City area, ranked third behind Baltimore and Phoenix/Prescott, Ariz., as the group’s Top Cities for Hospital Care in America.

Rounding out the top 10 were Richmond, Va.; Cincinnati, West Palm Beach, Fla.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; St. Louis, Hartford-New Haven, Conn.; and Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, Mich.

“It’s important for the people of Cedar Rapids to know you have three high-caliber hospitals in your backyard,” said report author Kristin Reed, HealthGrades vice president of hospital ratings. “Here’s an example of something that’s going right.”

Reed said Cedar Rapids moved up from 11th place in last year’s report.

“We keep showing up as a high level provider,” said Tim Charles, CEO of Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, citing other reports that corroborate the study. “It’s a great acknowledgment.”

Mercy and St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids and Mercy Iowa City helped the area achieve top 10 status.

“It starts with really good people doing really good work,” said St. Luke’s CEO Ted Townsend. “Without the caliber of physicians we have in this community, we would not be here.”

Both Townsend and Charles said the report also points to health care as an economic development recruiting tool for the Cedar Rapids area.

“It’s one of our biggest selling points,” Townsend said.

Mercy Iowa City spokesman Tim Ahlers said patients can review data, such as the HealthGrades report, as one source of information as they decide where to go for health care.

HealthGrades evaluated about 5,000 hospitals, not including Veterans Affairs medical centers, in 26 procedures and diagnoses, such as heart bypass surgery, stroke and total knee replacement.

Of those, 263 hospitals with the lowest risk-adjusted mortality and complications were designated as a HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital for Clinical Excellence, from which the Top Cities list was derived.

“What differentiates these hospitals from the rest is that while many hospitals have specific areas of expertise and high-quality outcomes in those areas, these hospitals exhibit comprehensive and consistent quality across medical specialties,” the report notes.

No hospital can opt in or out and no hospital pays to be evaluated.

Mortality and complication rates are risk-adjusted, taking into account differing levels of illness severity to allow  comparisons.

The report looked at data submitted to Medicare from 2008 through 2010, which showed those top hospitals had 30 percent lower death rates for 17 procedures and diagnoses and almost 2 percent lower complication rates for nine procedures.

If all hospitals performed as well as the top ones, the report said 165,704 Medicare deaths may have been prevented and 6,800 Medicare in-hospital complications may have been avoided.

Medicare estimates that one in seven Medicare beneficiaries is harmed in the hospital every year, costing the federal government $4.4 billion annually.

Starting in October, the new Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program will pay hospitals for inpatient services based on care quality rather than a fee-for-service basis.

FYI

For more information, see www.healthgrades.com