RUSSELL, Ky. —Officials at Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital (OLBH) today announced the hospital is among the nation’s top 10 percent in patient experience, according to HealthGrades, the nation’s leading independent healthcare ratings organization.

OLBH is a recipient of the 2009/2010 HealthGrades’ Outstanding Patient Experience Award. OLBH received the prestigious distinction last year, the first year the award was given.

Hospitals receiving this award are in the top 15 percent in terms of patient satisfaction, with OLBH ranked by HealthGrades among the top ten percent in overall patient experience in the nation.

Rankings are measured by survey results of patients gathered under an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services covering the year ending June 2008.

For hospitals receiving the HealthGrades award, 57 percent more patients gave that hospital a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale for overall patient satisfaction, compared with the worst-performing hospitals.

The Outstanding Patient Experience Award is based on patient survey data collected as part of the federal government’s HCAHPS initiative, which gathers patient responses to 27 survey questions related to physician and nurse communication, speed of responsiveness, hospital cleanliness and noise levels, medication information and post-discharge care instructions.

“It was an honor to receive this distinction based on the responses of our patients during the first year this award was presented,” Kevin Halter, OLBH CEO, said. “It’s an even greater honor to have maintained our high level of performance by receiving this distinction for the second straight year. Congratulations to OLBH’s exceptional staff and physicians for the hard work that led to this award.”

For more information about OLBH, visit the hospital’s Web site at www.olbh.com.

To identify the top-performing hospitals, HealthGrades analyzed survey results for the 3,711 hospitals nationwide that participated in the HCAHPS program during the study time period to determine which hospitals scored highest on the surveys.

Hospitals had to meet bed size, survey response size, and clinical-quality thresholds in order to be eligible for the award.

The methodology is available at www.HealthGrades.com.