More for your health

Your health is nothing to mess with. And when you want answers you want them right away. We understand this and we want to help alleviate the pain and hassle of searching for a doctor, and his or her location.

With our Top Doctors issue being one of our most popular, we always tend to hear a lot of feedback. Many of you have reached out to us recently asking how we obtained the information and how each doctor was researched.

We partnered with HealthGrades to bring readers a listing of the top-notch doctors that span our vast region. In order to do this HealthGrades' data team rated each of the area's hospitals in 23 categories-from appendectomies and gastrointestinal surgeries to orthopedics and maternity care. From those hospital ratings they then aggregated all of the doctors credentialed at the hospitals in the categories who have an outstanding record with their patients.

While 17 of our area's hospitals were five-star rated-a rating only 10 to 15 percent of the nation's hospitals receive—not all the hospitals were five-star in the 23 different categories. The list did not include all the hospitals the doctor is credentialed with; it is based exclusively on the hospitals receiving a five-star rating for the recognized specialties.

But the question remains, does the hospital make the doctor? Or does the doctor make the hospital? While there can be points argued both ways when one factors in experience, equipment, technology and hospital staff, the question is really difficult to answer. Knowing this, and also knowing how wide of a spread our region is, we have updated our Top-Rated Doctors list to include all the hospitals our top doctors are affiliated with, five-star rating or not, as well as updating any contact information in this nomadic industry.

Lynn Norusis
Managing Editor