BAKERSFIELD. Calif. -- The Heart Hospital is now ranked among the top five in California in coronary care.

The award is for coronary intervention from the nationally recognized company, HealthGrades. The recognition is based on HealthGrades’ twelfth annual Hospital Quality in America study, released Oct. 13, 2009, which analyzes patient outcomes at virtually all of the nation’s hospitals.

The hospital staff said there are a few reasons to be proud. Now there is a sense of local pride because the hospital's the emergency room doctors are all local doctors. Up until last June, the ER was managed by a company from Texas that brought in traveling ER doctors.

Also the hospital recently spent several million dollars to upgrade their emergency room equipment so they can handle almost any trauma situation , as well as cardiac care.

Bakersfield Heart Hospital is also the first hospital in the Bakersfield region to be ranked in the top 5 percent of hospitals in the nation for coronary interventional procedures, commonly known as PCI. Additionally, Bakersfield Heart Hospital is five-star rated for the quality of its treatment of heart attacks two years in a row, 2009 and 2010.

HealthGrades’ hospital ratings and awards reflect the track record of patient outcomes at hospitals in the form of mortality and complication rates. HealthGrades rates hospitals independently based on data that hospitals submit to the federal government. No hospital can opt in or out of being rated, and no hospital pays to be rated.

For 28 procedures and treatments, HealthGrades issues star ratings that reflect the mortality and complication rates for each category of care. Hospitals receiving a five-star rating have mortality or complication rates that are below the national average, to a statistically significant degree. A three-star rating means the hospital performs as expected. One-star ratings indicate the hospital’s mortality or complication rates in that procedure or treatment are statistically higher than average. Because the risk profiles of patient populations at hospitals are not alike, HealthGrades risk-adjusts the data to allow for apples-to-apples comparisons.