By Lookout Staff

January 22, 2015 -- For the ninth year in a row Providence Health and Services, Southern California, which operates Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, has received an award of excellence from a national consumer ratings company, the hospital announced Tuesday.

Providence Health and Services, Southern California earned the Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence from Healthgrades, a consumer ratings company, which evaluated more than 4,500 hospitals nationwide.

In addition, “for the second straight year, Providence is the only health care system in California to have all its eligible hospitals receive this national recognition,” hospital officials said.

Hospitals that ranked among the top 5 percent of those evaluated were singled out for “outstanding clinical performance on at least 21 of 32 of the most common diagnoses and procedures,” according to hospital officials.

“The results mean better outcomes for seriously ill patients,” officials said.

Providence Health and Services, Southern California also operates Providence Tarzana Medical Center, Providence Holy Cross in Mission Hills, Providence Saint Joseph in Burbank and Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance.

Including Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, the five hospitals were among 261 medical centers in the U.S. recognized with the award, according to the release.

“Health care has seen monumental changes in recent years and Providence is very fortunate to have physicians, nurses and other caregivers who have risen to the challenge of continuously providing the quality, compassionate and innovative care that is our tradition,” said Karl Carrier, interim chief executive of Providence Health and Services, Southern California.

“We are proud to be recognized by Healthgrades for our successes and honored to be named among the nation’s best.”

From 2011 through 2013, hospitals that received the award, “had a 27.7 percent lower risk adjusted mortality rate across 19 procedures and conditions where in-hospital mortality was the clinical outcome, compared to all other hospitals,” hospital officials said.

“During this same period, if all other hospitals performed at the level of Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence across these 19 procedures and conditions, 163,488 lives potentially could have been saved,” officials said.

Patients treated at a hospital that achieved the excellence award had, on average, a 26.6 percent lower risk of dying from a stroke than if treated at a hospital that did not receive the award, according to officials.

“Consumers today are assuming more and more responsibility for health care decisions and are increasingly relying on objective measures of quality to inform their selection of hospitals and physicians,” said Evan Marks, Healthgrades’ chief strategy officer.

“It is important for consumers to understand the variability in the nation’s hospitals so that they can make more informed choices.”

Consumers “can be confident” when selecting a hospital that has received Healthgrades’ award, he said.