Wheat Ridge Hospital Ranked One Of America's Best

WHEAT RIDGE, CO — One north metro Denver hospital received Healthgrades' "America's Best Hospitals Award" for 2018. Wheat Ridge's Lutheran Medical Center earned the award by grading in the top one percent of the country's hospitals for exhibiting clinical excellence for at least three consecutive years, Healthgrades announced this week.

Lutheran Medical Center, in addition to being named one of Healthgrades' top overall hospitals, also received praise from the group for cardiac care, critical care, gastrointestinal care, stroke care and pulmonary care.

According to Healthgrades, the hospitals that receive its awards have superior clinical outcomes across the majority of common inpatient conditions and procedures. Healthgrades says that these hospitals sustained their performance for at least five consecutive years.

The analysis by Healthgrades found that these hospitals outperformed their counterparts in treating a core group of conditions that account for more than 80 percent of deaths in the areas evaluated for the rankings.
The Colorado hospitals that ranked among the best 100 hospitals in America are:

• Good Samaritan Medical Center Lafayette, CO (top 2 percent)
• Lutheran Medical Center Wheat Ridge, CO (top 1 percent)
• Poudre Valley Hospital Fort Collins, CO (top 2 percent)
• Saint Joseph Hospital Denver, CO (top 1 percent)
• University of Colorado Hospital - Anschutz Inpatient Pavilion Aurora, CO (top 2 percent)

The top 50 hospitals in the country received Healthgrades' Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence for at least seven consecutive years. The top 100 hospitals received the award for at least the last five years. Hospitals that receive the Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence are evaluated for performance on 32 procedures and conditions to identify the hospitals with superior performance overall. Healthgrades then determines an overall performance score for each hospital.

The procedures and conditions evaluated in the methodology include heart attack, pancreatitis, pneumonia, sepsis, stroke, bariatric surgery, defibrillator procedures and spinal fusion. (Read more about the methodology here.)

To be eligible for the rankings, a hospital must be evaluated in at least 21 of the procedures and conditions. Healthgrades uses Medicare inpatient data purchased from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

See the full list of hospitals that made the list here.

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