Coordinated Health–Allentown Achieves Healthgrades 2020 Patient Safety Excellence Award™

Coordinated Health–Allentown, part of Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN), announced today it is a recipient of the Healthgrades 2020 Patient Safety Excellence Award™ for the fourth year. This distinction places Coordinated Health-Allentown among the top 5 percent of all short-term acute care hospitals reporting patient safety data as evaluated by Healthgrades, the leading resource that connects consumers, physicians and health systems.

“This distinguished designation by Healthgrades could only be possible thanks to the outstanding contributions of our highly skilled physician teams, nurses, physical therapists and hospital staff,” added Christine Biege, Vice President of Patient Care Services, Coordinated Health.

“We are very proud to receive this recognition for the fourth time from Healthgrades. It’s a clear indication that our hospitals are consistently among the best in the nation for surgical outcomes,” said Amy Nyberg, President Coordinated Health. “Our fully integrated model results in safer surgery and repeated recognition for the highest quality joint replacement and spine surgery.

Healthgrades found that patients treated in hospitals receiving the Patient Safety Excellence Award were, on average*:

• 48.3% less likely to experience a collapsed lung due to a procedure or surgery in or around the chest, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals

• 54.4% less likely to experience a hip fracture following surgery, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals

• 66.8% less likely to experience pressure sores or bedsores acquired in the hospital, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals

• 63% less likely to experience catheter-related bloodstream infections acquired at the hospital, than patients treated at non-recipient hospitals

For its analysis, Healthgrades evaluated approximately 45 million Medicare inpatient records for nearly 4,500 short-term acute care hospitals nationwide to assess hospital performance in 32 common conditions and procedures. Healthgrades recognizes a hospital’s quality achievements for cohort-specific performance specialty area performance, and overall clinical quality. Individual procedure or condition cohorts are designated as 5-star (statistically significantly better than expected), 3-star (not statistically different from expected) and 1-star (statistically significantly worse than expected) categories.

“Consumers might not know that information around patient safety is readily available and should be considered when researching health care options,” said Brad Bowman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Healthgrades. “We commend the recipients of the 2020 Patient Safety Excellence Award for their dedication to providing excellent care for their patients.”

Coordinated Health–Allentown is one of three COVID-FREE hospitals at Lehigh Valley Health Network, which means it’s a stand-alone building that has never seen a COVID-19 case. It is physically separated from those that care for COVID-19 patients.

In order to continue to ensure patient safety within the COVID-FREE hospitals, clinicians are tested for COVID-19 weekly, and patients are tested prior to surgery. Other safeguards are also in place, including temperature screenings, limited seating in waiting areas, and all patients and colleagues must wear face masks.

View Healthgrades hospital quality methodologies.

Statistics are calculated from Healthgrades Patient Safety Ratings and Excellence Award methodology, which is based primarily on AHRQ technical specifications (Version 2019.0.1) to MedPAR data for years 2016 through 2018 and represent three-year estimates for Medicare patients only.