Allina Hospitals & Clinics has two heart hospitals in the top 100
MINNEAPOLIS 11/21/2008--
Abbott Northwestern Hospital and Mercy Hospital, both part of Allina Hospitals & Clinics, are included in the Thomson Reuters annual study identifying the 100 U.S. hospitals that are setting the nation's benchmarks for cardiovascular care. The study - 2008 Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals®: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success - examined the performance of 970 hospitals by analyzing clinical outcomes for patients diagnosed with heart failure and heart attacks and for those who received coronary bypass surgery and angioplasties.
"Patients should be relieved to know that two of the finest heart hospitals in the nation are right in their own backyards," said Penny Wheeler, MD, Allina's chief clinical officer.
The Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital
The Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital has received this recognition eight times since the ratings started ten years ago.
"This is great testimony to the ongoing commitment the physicians, nurses and support staff provide to being a leader in cutting edge quality, technology, teaching and research around cardiovascular disease in this region," said Abbott Northwestern's president Jeffrey Peterson.
The Heart & Vascular Center of Mercy Hospital
Mercy Hospital, 20 miles north in Coon Rapids, with a different roster of cardiologists and surgeons, has been on the list every year for the past six.
"Our providers continue to push the cardiology services to new levels of quality, and I personally could not be more proud of the care that is delivered at Mercy every day," said Mercy's president Tom O'Connor. "By partnering with our sister hospitals in the north metro, Buffalo and Unity, we have created an integrated care process that ensures patients receive fast and excellent cardiac care, and we have been able to dramatically improve outcomes for heart attack patients."
More heart bypass surgeries and angioplasties
The study found that the 100 Top Hospitals cardiovascular award winners, as a group, performed 63 percent more bypass surgeries and 42 percent more angioplasties than peer hospitals. This may suggest that performance of bypass surgery is increasingly performed in centers of excellence.
While the average mortality rate for cardiovascular patients is very low (3.4 percent), the mortality rate for bypass surgery was 26 percent lower in the 100 Top Hospitals cardiovascular winners. The award-winning hospitals demonstrated higher performance on the evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and cost $1,542 less per case, on average.
The 100 Top Hospitals study
The 2008 Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals®: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success study focused on short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of cardiology patients. Thomson Reuters researchers analyzed 2006 and 2007 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data, 2007 Medicare cost reports, and data from other sources. They scored hospitals in key performance areas: risk-adjusted medical mortality, risk-adjusted surgical mortality, risk-adjusted complications, core measures score, percentage of coronary bypass patients with internal mammary artery use, procedure volume, severity-adjusted average length of stay, and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost.
About Thomson Reuters
The health care business of Thomson Reuters produces insights, information, benchmarks and analysis that enable organizations to manage costs, improve performance and enhance the quality of healthcare. Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, scientific, healthcare and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 50,000 people in 93 countries.
About Allina Hospitals & Clinics
Allina Hospitals & Clinics is a not-for-profit family of hospitals, clinics and other care services dedicated to meeting the lifelong health care needs of communities throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin. As they deliver exceptional health care and support services, our more than 23,000 employees, 5,000 physicians and 2,500 volunteers share a common mission, vision and values.
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