How do WNY hospitals rank in new list?

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Consumer Reports is out with its new hospital safety ratings. How did hospitals in western New York stack up?

At the top of the list: Mt. St. Mary's Hospital rated highest in western New York for patient safety, in the latest edition of Consumer Reports. The magazine broke down the rankings by state and the Lewiston hospital finished in a three-way tie for sixth place in New York.

President and CEO Judith Maness said, "Obviously, I would rather be where I am than lower down the list."

Maness told News 4 that medical staff, administrators, and volunteers adhere very closely to the practice of: "Healing without Harm."

"We understand that mistakes are made, we are beginning to understand how those mistakes occur, and everywhere we can we are trying to eliminate that. And so we come to that healing without harm," she said.

Consumer Reports rated all of Kaleida Health's hospital as a group and Kaleida ranked in the bottom fourth for patient safety. In a written statement, spokesman Mike Hughes said, in part, "All hospital report cards have problems and limitations, and none can ever fully reflect a hospital's overall quality and patient safety or its comprehensive improvement efforts. This report does not accurately reflect the safe care Kaleida Health's patients receive every day."

Catholic Health's John Stavros said, "I think definitely it is scratching the surface."

Stavros told News 4 the Consumer Reports rankings are a good start, but there are better, more comprehensive resources for consumers, shopping for top quality medical care. Stavros said Catholic Health devotes an entire department to collecting quality of care data.

"It compares outcomes of patients, it finds out when there are incidents, why they happened, we do research so they don't happen again. And we've been very successful in improving all our quality indicators at Catholic Health," he noted.

It is important to point out, Consumer Reports rankings cover less than one fifth of all the nation's hospitals. Excluded locally are Women and Children's Hospital, Roswell Park, and the VA Hospital.

For the full list of rankings, follow this link.