Franklin ranked among top 10 hospitals in New York State for joint replacement

Franklin Hospital is ranked the best on Long Island for joint replacement outcomes and also is tops in Nassau County for its overall success in orthopedics and joint replacement, according to the latest national study by HealthGrades.

HealthGrades the nation's leading independent ratings organization, which evaluated patient outcomes at 5,000 hospitals nationwide, ranked Franklin among the top 10 hospitals in New York State for joint replacement and among the top 10 percent in the United States. As a result, Franklin was the recipient of HealthGrades' Joint Replacement Excellence Award for 2011. The hospital earned HealthGrades' five-star rating for joint replacement, total knee replacement and total hip replacement. Franklin is the only hospital on Long Island to receive five-star ratings for both total knee and total hip replacement procedures.

"These rankings are an independent affirmation of the high quality of Franklin's exceptional joint replacement and orthopedic surgery programs," said Joseph Manopella, executive director of Franklin Hospital. "We continue to improve the patient experience, and are proud and thankful for the extraordinary work of our surgeons and staff, as well as the support of our community."

Franklin's Center for Surgical Specialties includes 22 surgeons on staff, 12 of whom are currently performing joint replacements. Giles R. Scuderi, MD, vice president of orthopedic surgery at the North Shore-LIJ Health System who joined Franklin in 2006, noted that the hospital's volume of orthopedic surgeries has increased 43 percent from 2007 to this year - and the number of joint replacements performed at Franklin has more than doubled during that span. "The dramatic jump in orthopedic surgical volume can be attributed to Franklin's growing reputation for excellence among both physicians and the community," said Dr. Scuderi. "We're attracting such a large number of patients because we have the skill and technology to treat very complex conditions of the joints. We're able to restore motion, with minimal pain and minimal length of stay."

Franklin's expertise in joint replacement and orthopedic surgeries is also enabling the hospital to attract top talent. "We're obviously pleased by the HealthGrades' ranking and excited about what the future holds for our Center for Surgical Specialties, but we're especially proud of helping hundreds of patients every year regain mobility and return to active, independent lifestyles," said Gus Katsigiorgis, DO, Franklin's co-chief of orthopedic surgery and a specialist in sports medicine, orthopedic surgery and joint replacement.

The public is demanding increased public reporting of quality measures, and recent government reform efforts support this call to action. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than 40 percent of adults report that they believe there are major differences in hospital quality in their immediate geography. Additionally, since 1996, the number of consumers that indicated they would choose a hospital based on a high quality rating over familiarity has increased to 72 percent from 59 percent.

The HealthGrades study, the largest annual report of its kind, analyzed patient outcomes in nearly 40 million Medicare hospitalization records from the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. Among the findings related to in-hospital complications in this year's study are:

* Across all procedures in which complications were studied, there was an 80 percent lower chance of experiencing one or more complications in a five-star rated hospital compared to a one-star rated hospital.

* Across all procedures studied, there was a 63 percent lower chance of experiencing one or more inhospital complications in a five-star rated hospital compared to the U.S. hospital average.

* If all hospitals performed at the level of a five-star rated hospital, 185,875 inhospital complications may have been avoided among Medicare patients over the three years studied.

The new 2011 HealthGrades hospital ratings were posted today and are free to the public at www.healthgrades.com.  

HealthGrades Hospital Quality Ratings

HealthGrades' hospital ratings and awards reflect the track record of patient outcomes at hospitals in the form of mortality and complication rates. HealthGrades rates hospitals independently based on data that hospitals submit to the federal government. No hospital can opt in or out of being rated, and no hospital pays to be rated.

For 26 procedures and treatments, HealthGrades issues star ratings that reflect the mortality and complication rates for each category of care. Hospitals receiving a 5-star rating have mortality or complication rates that are below the national average, to a statistically significant degree. A 3-star rating means the hospital performs as expected. One-star ratings indicate the hospital's mortality or complication rates in that procedure or treatment are statistically higher than average. Because the risk profiles of patient populations at hospitals are not alike, HealthGrades risk-adjusts the data to allow for equal comparisons.