Northeast Georgia Medical Center is eighth in the country ­— its second consecutive year in the top 10 — for overall hospital care, according to CareChex, an independent health care quality rating service.

The rating service also names the hospital No. 1 overall in Georgia for the third year in a row and No. 1 for stroke care, women’s health and cardiac care. It is the 11th consecutive year the hospital is rated Georgia’s No. 1 heart hospital.

The CareChex study includes nearly all U.S. hospitals (general, acute, non-federal) and measures them across several categories, including quality of medical care, outcomes of care and patient satisfaction.

“Hospitals do not apply or ask to be part of the CareChex study. They can’t opt out, and the study doesn’t include any subjective opinion — so it’s an unbiased view of hard data,” said Priscilla Strom, chief of Northeast Georgia Medical Center’s medical staff and a general surgeon with The Longstreet Clinic.

“And the data the study includes ranges from how well each hospital executes best practices for care, to complication rates, to patient satisfaction, to nurse communication, to pain control and several other factors between.  So these awards are ultimately a byproduct of a team effort that saves and improves lives.”

CareChex is a division of Comparion Medical Analytics — one of the nation's largest privately-held health care information services companies.

“We are always excited when we receive awards that first and foremost recognize how well we clinically treat you as a patient, but it means a little bit more when we’re also recognized for the way we respectfully treat you as a person,” said Carol Burrell, president and CEO of Northeast Georgia Health System.

To learn more about services offered through Northeast Georgia Medical Center’s hospitals in Gainesville and Braselton, and the rest of Northeast Georgia Health System, visit www.nghs.com or call 770-219-3840.