NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Health care is a hot investment sector, encompassing new and emerging biotech and pharmaceutical companies as well as larger health care servicer providers. Some of the industry's best performers last quarter included well-known big benefits companies.

The S&P 500 Health Care Index rose 6.16% for the first three months of the year, outstripping the broader S&P 500 Index, which inched just 0.44% higher for the same time period. These 10 health care stocks significantly outperformed their sector index.

TheStreet paired the 10 best health care performers with TheStreet Ratings to determine whether they really are good investments going forward.

TheStreet Ratings, TheStreet's proprietary ratings tool, projects a stock's total return potential over a 12-month period including both price appreciation and dividends. Based on 32 major data points, TheStreet Ratings uses a quantitative approach to rating over 4,300 stocks to predict return potential for the next year. The model is both objective, using elements such as volatility of past operating revenues, financial strength, and company cash flows, and subjective, including expected equities market returns, future interest rates, implied industry outlook and forecasted company earnings.

More here:

These 10 Pharma and Health Care Stocks Were the Best S&P 500 Performers Last Quarter