SEATTLE - Each year, medical errors cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Some hospitals are doing better than others at preventing mistakes.

Providence/Everett's Colby Campus made the list.

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Of the nearly 5,000 hospitals in a study looking at patient safety, 249 of them landed in the top 5 percent, and nine of them are in Washington State.

Healthgrades analyzed 41 million Medicare patient records between 2004 and 2006. There, they found patients treated at top-performing hospitals had, on average, a 43 percent lower chance of experiencing medical errors compared to the poorest-performing hospitals.

The distinguished hospitals in Washington State are:

- Northwest Hospital - Seattle
- Overlake Hospital - Bellevue
- Providence/Everett: Colby Campus- Everett
- Good Samaritan - Puyallup
- Tacoma General Allenmore - Tacoma
- Providence St. Peter - Olympia
- Capital Medical Ctr. - Olympia
- Holy Family - Spokane
- Sacred Heart - Spokane

According to Healthgrades, these hospitals are among the top 5 percent in the nation, making fewer medical mistakes.

They say if all hospitals had performed at this level in the two years studied, more than 37,000 Medicare deaths could have been prevented.

Healthgrades draws its information from Medicare admissions data.

The method is not without critics. Some say the data doesn't contain the kind of detail needed for a reliable hospital rating.

Other Northwest hospitals making the list of best performers:

Oregon

- Mercy Medical Center - Roseburg
- Providence Medford Medical Center-  Medford
- Rogue Valley Medical Center - Medford
- St. Charles Medical Center – Bend
- Alle Kiski Medical Center - Natrona Heights

Idaho

- St. Joseph Regional Medical Center - Lewiston
- St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center - Boise