Southcoast Hospitals has received the HealthGrades Patient Safety Excellence Award^TM for 2010 for being ranked within the top 5 percent of all hospitals in the U.S. for patient safety, according to HealthGrades®, the country's leading independent health care ratings organization.

Southcoast is one of just seven hospitals in Massachusetts and the only hospital in the South Coast region to receive the honor.

"Receiving this prestigious award proves that we are doing many of the things necessary to ensure that our patients receive safe, high-quality care," said Keith A. Hovan, President of Southcoast Health System and President and CEO of Southcoast Hospitals Group. "I am proud of the good work so many employees are doing on behalf of our patients."

Hovan added that improving patient safety, however, is an ongoing quest that requires constant vigilance and adherence to best practices.

"We cannot take this honor for granted, but use it as a springboard to further improve our patient-safety record," Hovan said. "Fundamental practices like compliance with hand-washing protocols will help us keep this important designation and improve upon our achievement."

Patients at hospitals in the top 5 percent experienced 43 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 218,572 patient-safety incidents and 22,590 deaths nationwide could potentially have been avoided, saving $2 billion between 2006 and 2008.

The HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals study evaluated 39.5 million hospitalization records from the nation's nearly 5,000 non-federal hospitals, tracking trends in a range of patient-safety incidents  using indicators from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Medicare data.

More information is available at www.healthgrades.com.