The quality of hospital-based care in America is improving, but the gap between top-performing and poor-performing hospitals persists according to a study released October 15th by HealthGrades, which identified Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute as being among the top five percent in the nation for overall cardiac and stroke care. This marks the sixth year in a row the hospital has ranked top five percent for cardiology as well. HealthGrades is the nation's leading independent healthcare ratings company.

The study, which documents a significant variation in care quality between the highest-performing hospitals and all others, also found that if all hospitals performed at the level of hospitals rated with five stars by HealthGrades, 266,604 Medicare lives could have potentially been saved over the three years studied.

"Our research shows that while the overall quality of hospital care in America is improving, the gap between the best-performing hospitals and the worst persists," said Dr. Samantha Collier, HealthGrades' chief medical officer and author of the study. "This persistent gap makes it imperative that anyone planning to be admitted to a hospital do their homework and seek out highly rated facilities."

According to The Tenth Annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study, Lawnwood is also recognized in the following areas:

Recipient of the HealthGrades Cardiac Care Excellence Award TM - 2005-2008

Recipient of the HealthGrades 2008 Coronary Intervention Excellence Award TM

Recipient of the HealthGrades Stroke Care Excellence Award TM 2005 - 2008

Recipient of the 2008 HealthGrades General Surgery Excellence Award™

"We couldn't be more proud of these latest results on behalf of our patients and community," said Tom Pentz, C.E.O. of Lawnwood. "These new ratings come as a direct result of our team's consistent focus on quality initiatives throughout the hospital. Everything we do is centered around providing the best care possible for our patients. Earlier this year we were designated by HealthGrades as one of America's 50 Best Hospitals. That is a crowning achievement for Lawnwood and one our staff is incredibly proud of. The results from this latest study simply underscore the consistency of our commitment to quality."

The Tenth Annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study identifies key trends in the quality of care provided by approximately 5,000 hospitals nationwide. HealthGrades researchers analyzed Medicare discharges from every U.S. hospital between 2004 and 2006. Risk-adjusted mortality and complication rates were calculated and hospitals were assigned a 1-star (poor), 3-star (as expected), or 5-star (best) quality rating for 28 diagnoses and procedures from heart failure to hip replacement to pneumonia. Individual hospital quality results from this study are available at www.healthgrades.com.

Among the study's key findings:

• Gaps persist between the "best" and the "worst" hospitals across all procedures and conditions studied. Five-star rated hospitals had significantly lower risk-adjusted mortality across all three years studied.

• Across all procedures and conditions studied, there was an approximate 71 percent lower chance of dying in a 5-star rated hospital compared to a 1-star rated hospital.

• Across all procedures and conditions studied, there was an approximate 52 percent lower chance of dying in a 5-star rated hospital compared to the U.S. hospital average.

The 2008 HealthGrades ratings for all hospitals nationwide are available, free of charge, on the organization's award-winning consumer Web site, located at www.healthgrades.com. More than three million individuals and employees of some of the nation's largest employers and health plans visit HealthGrades each month to access quality information about hospitals, nursing homes and physicians. HealthGrades also provides consumers and payers with detailed assessments of hospitals' patient-safety outcomes, based on indicators developed by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

About Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute

Lawnwood is a 341 bed acute care hospital which provides a full range of services to the Treasure Coast including obstetrics and pediatrics, state-of-the-art imaging services, inpatient psychiatric care, inpatient physical rehabilitation care, 24 hour emergency department, and cardiac services ranging from catheterization to open-heart surgery. In 2005 Lawnwood added robotic surgical services and surgeons are now performing minimally invasive prostate cancer surgeryat the hospital.