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The NCH Healthcare System is at the top of the list among all Florida hospitals for it cardiac care program, including its surgical services to heart patients, says a national health-care ratings organization.

NCH ranks No. 1 in the state for both overall cardiac services and cardiology, according to Colorado-based HealthGrades. Cardiac services involve surgical and interventional care for heart issues and cardiology services essentially involve medical management of heart patients, said Ann Stadjuhar, a consultant with HealthGrades.

“We have rated them No. 1,” she said of NCH. “They have the strongest scores for cardiac care among all hospitals in the state. That is a magnificent achievement.”

The state ranking of the hospitals is not available to the public; consumers can look up how a hospital performs in various medical care categories and procedures in a five-star rating system, with five stars being the best.

Overall, Florida is one of the top five states for best-performing hospitals, she said. For instance, the state is No. 1 for stroke care, pulmonary disease care and critical care.

“Florida is a great state to be sick in,” she said, adding that the demographics of an elderly population drives volume up for medical intervention. “Practice makes perfect. The more you do, the better you are.”

HealthGrades also ranked NCH among the top 5 percent in the U.S. for spine surgery and fifth in the state for spine surgery, among the top 10 percent nationally for overall pulmonary services and fourth in the state for gastrointestinal care.

Dr. Allen Weiss, president and chief executive officer of NCH, said the hospital system’s top ranking in cardiac services began with the opening 10 years ago of the Shick Heart Center when it debuted open-heart surgery and continued with the proactive intervention program, ‘Code Save-A-Heart Program.” The program involves a coordinated team approach, from paramedics to the emergency room staff, for getting heart attack patients in the cardiac catheterization lab quickly for an angioplasty and stenting to open blocked vessels.

“We’re getting good and when you get good at one thing, you get good at a bunch of things,” Weiss said, adding that NCH has received 30 awards from national health-care rating groups since getting its first award in 2002. “It’s clearly teamwork. It’s clearly people.”

The ranking by HealthGrades is based on mortality, morbidity, length of stay, complication rates and other objective measures, he said.

For instance, NCH’s mortality rate for heart attack is 2.2 percent, half that of the national rate of 4 percent to 5 percent, he said.

Patients have a 71 percent lower chance of dying at the nation’s top-rated hospitals compared to hospitals with the lowest ratings, according to HealthGrades.

Nationwide, mortality rates in American hospitals has improved 11.8 percent from 2004 to 2006 in 18 procedures examined, according to the group. Medicare outcomes were examined at 5,000 hospitals.

Consumers can go to HealthGrades.com to examine how hospitals perform in the star-rating system.