NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Southcoast Hospitals Group announced today that it has been identified as a recipient of the 2011 HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award™ ranking in the top 5 percent of all hospitals in the U.S. in patient safety by HealthGrades® for the second year in a row.

In a new study released yesterday by HealthGrades, the nation’s most trusted source of health care provider information, Southcoast Hospitals was listed as one of just twelve hospitals in Massachusetts and the only hospital in the South Coast region to receive the prestigious HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award.

“Southcoast continues to provide our patients with the safest and highest quality care available. Top quality and the safest environment possible is our consistent focus that resonates across all services we provide at all Southcoast facilities,” said Keith A. Hovan, President of Southcoast Health System and President & CEO of Southcoast Hospitals Group. “I am once again proud of the great work so many Southcoast employees are doing on behalf of our patients.”

Southcoast was one of only 12 hospitals in Massachusetts to rank in the top 5 percent in the U.S. in patient safety and only one of six hospitals in Massachusetts to receive the designation two years in a row, according to HealthGrades.

Patients at hospitals in the top 5 percent experienced 46 percent fewer patient safety incidents, on average, compared to poorly performing hospitals, according to HealthGrades. If all hospitals performed at this level, HealthGrades estimated that 174,358 patient safety incidents and 20,688 Medicare deaths could have been avoided while saving the federal government approximately $1.8 billion in excess health care costs from 2007 to 2009.

“We’ve seen great advances in medical care in the last few decades, but along with these miraculous advances come greater and greater risks. Hospitals like Southcoast Hospitals Group have shown definitively that it is possible to provide the best in medical care while still focusing on the safety of the patient,” said Rick May, MD, Vice President of Clinical Quality Improvement at HealthGrades and co-author of the study.

The eighth annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals study analyzed nearly 40 million hospitalization records from approximately 5,000 hospitals nationwide that participate in the Medicare program. Participation in the HealthGrades study is not voluntary and hospitals cannot choose to opt out of the analysis.

HeathGrades used Medicare inpatient data from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) database and Patient Safety Indicator software from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to calculate event rates for 13 indicators of patient safety for all of the nation’s hospitals. All analysis was based on data from 2007 to 2009 with the exception of Foreign Body Left After a Procedure which was based only on data from 2009. These indicators identify the best-performing hospitals, or Patient Safety Excellence Award™ Hospitals, which represent the top 5 percent of all U.S. hospitals. HealthGrades developed this award to give patients more information about choosing a hospital.

Southcoast Health System is a community based health delivery system with multiple access points, offering an integrated continuum of health services throughout Southeastern Massachusetts and East Bay, Rhode Island. It includes the three hospitals that make up Southcoast Hospitals Group — Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford and Tobey Hospital in Wareham.