Daina Lopez, 16, cares for her 3-day-old son, Elijah, at MountainView Hospital on Tuesday while Susan Hoover, in background, holds her 10-day-old daughter, Isabella. MountainView was one of two area hospitals to receive a five-star rating in a report card released Monday by Colorado-based HealthGrades. The other hospital to receive the highest rating was North Vista. Photo by John Gurzinski.

Southern Nevada's expectant mothers have several hospitals from which to choose to deliver their special loved one, or two. And, according to a national health care ratings organization, North Vista and MountainView hospitals are the better choices.

Both received five stars on HealthGrades' 2006/07 Hospital Report Card in Maternity Care, released Monday. HealthGrades based its ratings on patient outcomes provided by hospitals to the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services.

Hospitals provided the number of newborns delivered, newborn mortality rates, and complication rates from deliveries, including those from elective Caesarean sections.

The report also graded hospitals on overall care of women with cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death among women.

Hospitals receiving five stars -- noted as the best -- rank among the top 15 percent of those that participated in the survey, said Scott Shapiro, a spokesman for Colorado-based HealthGrades. Nevada was one of 17 states to provide the information and be included in the report.

Hospitals that received three stars are considered "as expected," and those that received one star are considered "poor."

There were no two- or four-star rankings given, Shapiro said.

Whether a hospital has a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, or NICU, also factored into the ratings.

A NICU is a special area where care is given to premature babies, infants requiring mechanical ventilation or neonatal surgery, babies with congenital heart disease, and those with low birth weight.

St. Rose Dominican Hospital's Siena Campus, Valley Hospital Medical Center, Summerlin Hospital Medical Center, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, and University Medical Center -- each with NICUs -- received three stars. St. Rose Dominican Hospital's Rose de Lima Campus received three stars but doesn't have a NICU.

Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center, which opened in 2003 and opened its NICU the next year, received one star. The rating irked Valley Health System officials. For one, they said, only 1,169 babies were born at Spring Valley during the study's time frame of 2002 through 2004. In comparison, roughly 7,100 babies were born at St. Rose Dominican Hospital's Siena Campus.

"Obviously, with so few reported cases, any negative outcomes will skew the numbers, and truly it's not enough data to call it a trend,'' said Rick Plummer, a spokesman for Valley Health System, which operates Spring Valley, Summerlin and Valley hospitals. "The bottom line for Spring Valley is, the newborn mortality (rate) is as expected and the complication rates are in line with the rest of Las Vegas hospitals. That is about as much of a comparison as can really be made between Spring Valley and other Las Vegas hospitals.''

Plummer called HealthGrades' data "old" and said Valley Health System placed little emphasis on it. Instead, more weight is placed on "evidence-based" quality data through organizations such as the Institute of Health Care Improvement and Leapfrog.

Leapfrog, a Web-based organization that measures safety and quality of hospitals, provided information to HealthGrades for its report, Shapiro said.

The Institute of Health Care Improvement is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization that provides information to hospitals to help them improve patient care and prevent avoidable death. This month, the organization estimated that about 122,300 lives had been saved in the past 18 months in hospitals that implemented six changes it had recommended to cut down on medical errors.

"Obviously we don't want any of our hospitals to have one star, but there are different organizations providing quality data. The next one may show Spring Valley with five stars based on the same information,'' Plummer said.

Michael Tymczyn, with St. Rose Dominican hospitals, made similar comments, calling HealthGrades' rating system "problematic.'' He said the Hospital Compare report is a better source of quality care information.

That report, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, evaluates hospitals in such areas as heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical infection prevention.

"People have tended to spend more time researching new cars than researching which hospital to check into. That's in large part because comparisons of hospitals' outcomes have not been available,'' Shapiro said. "While there is a wide chasm in quality between the nation's best and worst hospitals, HealthGrades provides a method of easily comparing the patient outcomes.''

Glenda McCartney, a spokeswoman for Sunrise Health System which operates Sunrise, Southern Hills and MountainView hospitals, said the organization does pay attention to HealthGrades and other groups that provide consumer information.

"We'd like all of our hospitals to be five stars,'' she said.

Within the Sunrise system, Sunrise Hospital delivers about 6,000 babies per year. Even though it received a three-star rating, McCartney said, "people have to understand, we take in the majority of high-risk pregnancies, preemies, very sick mothers and infants. We also take in high-risk pregnancies from Arizona and Utah. These are people who are in need of some very specialized care. ... Three isn't a bad score. It is as expected."

Although some hospitals disputed the data, North Las Vegas-based North Vista Hospital officials were grateful, saying they were happy to be on top for a change.

"It's like a shot in the arm for us,'' said Mirohim "Mimi" Gayre, a spokeswoman. "We've always been in the three-star category.''

Boulder City and Desert Springs hospitals and Grover C Dils and Nye Regional medical centers were not rated in the HealthGrades report.