And, we reach out to patients and residents of outlying communities to let them know of our specialized services such as cancer, neuroscience, hearts, orthopedics and women's and children's services should they need a higher level of care than is available to them locally. For instance, we have grown our volume of referrals from outlying areas significantly over the past years. Board certification means that these physicians are recognized by their peers nationally as having achieved a certain standard of knowledge and expertise in their medical field of interest. The specialized care we provide at our hospitals in areas such as cancer, heart and trauma means that we care for very sick patients. Despite the fact we care for the sickest patients, our mortality rate is lower than the national average.
Mortality is a standard measurement of patients who die in hospitals.
Mortality is measured by dividing the number of deaths by the number of patients discharged, and does not account for severity of illness. Our profits are not paid out as dividends to shareowners because there are no shareowners. By law, any net income must be reinvested in Sutter Health's fundamental non-profit mission.