By Deborah Mcdermott
August 18th, 2011

YORK, Maine — A nonprofit health management foundation recently released its ranking of Maine hospitals based on patient care, and York Hospital scored at or near the top across the board.

The Maine Health Management Coalition Foundation gathered data from a variety of federal, state and health foundation sources, ranking hospitals on heart attack care, heart failure care and pneumonia.

These are three of the most common reasons that patients enter hospitals, said Nancy Morris, communications director for the foundation.

Hospitals were also judged on preventing surgical infections, medication safety and safe practices, as well as the overall patient experience.

Morris said data indicates whether each hospital is following care prescribed by health care experts as the most effective way to handle a certain problem. The data compares Maine's hospitals to others across the country to determine the ranking.

All of the information can be found at www.getbettermaine.org. The Web site was created to be as user friendly as possible for the consumer, Morris said.

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