DENVER – HealthGrades, Inc., an online healthcare quality rating and services company, has identified the top 50 cities for hospital care. The list recognizes cities that have the highest concentration of top performing hospitals – those ranked the top 5 percent nationwide for care.

The top cities for hospital care and top performing hospital ranking are based on the ninth annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study. The study looks at patient death and complication rates at the nation’s nearly 5,000 hospitals. It also ranks hospitals across 26 different medical procedures and diagnoses. Hospitals are evaluated solely on patients’ clinical outcomes: risk-adjusted mortality and inhospital. The analysis is based on approximately 40 million Medicare patient discharge records for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009.

[Read more about the top performing hospital here: HealthGrades study: 'Unacceptably wide gap' between top peforming hospitals, others.]

According to HealthGrades rankings, West Palm Beach, Fla., is number one in the nation, with nine out of 12 hospitals designated as top performers.

This year’s study found that American families are highly aware of differences in hospital quality within their communities, expect continued transparency from hospitals when it comes to quality, and rely on clinical quality ratings as a trusted source when choosing a provider.

“Our research indicates that the recent healthcare reform debate and highly-publicized reports about the persistence of wide variation in the quality of patient care at U.S. hospitals have resonated with the American public,” said Rick May, HealthGrades' vice president of clinical quality services and study co-author. “No longer is today’s health care consumer simply looking for the least expensive option when it comes to medical care. They expect high quality and are willing to go out of their way to get it.”

According to a survey of nearly 15,000 visitors to HealthGrades.com that was included in the study:

• More than 83 percent of consumers are very or somewhat concerned about hospital quality in their community.
• Almost all patients surveyed, 93.8 percent, reported being willing to go out of their way (drive further, reschedule appointments) to seek care at a more highly-rated hospital. The majority of healthcare consumers surveyed, 64.9 percent, also said they'd be willing to pay more out of pocket to seek care at a top-rated hospital.
• More than half, 57 percent, believe online hospital quality ratings are a trustworthy source of information.
• Nearly 67 percent want access to more quality information and 60.7 percent feel the federal government should pay highly-performing hospitals more.

[Read more about what Americans want regarding quality healthcare information online. Survey: Patients say finding PCP info online is difficult.]

Other key findings from the study:

• Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence (top 5 percent in the nation) outperform all other hospitals across all of the 17 mortality cohorts and six of nine complication cohorts studied from 2007 through 2009.
• Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence had a 29.82 percent lower risk-adjusted inhospital mortality rate and a 1.91 percent lower risk-adjusted inhospital complication rate among Medicare beneficiaries compared to all other hospitals.
• If all hospitals performed at this level, 158,684 Medicare lives could potentially have been saved and 3,511 Medicare inhospital complications could potentially have been avoided.

Click here to see the list of hospitals that rank top 5 percent in the nation for each city.

For the Top 50 Cities list click on the next page.