Trinity Hospital was recently named one of America's "50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals" by Truven Health Analytics, formerly Thompson Reuter Healthcare Inc., a leading authority on clinical quality. The 2013 winners were announced Oct. 1 in Modern Healthcare magazine. Trinity was the only North Dakota hospital to make the list and one of only 15 community hospitals recognized nationwide.
In compiling its Top 50 list, Truven Health examined the performance of more than 1,000 hospitals, analyzing outcomes of patients with heart failure and heart attack, and those who received coronary bypass surgery and percutaneous coronary interventions such as angioplasty.
"This is a tribute not only to Trinity's heart team and our care system, but to the community at large," said Trinity Health president and CEO John Kutch. "It reflects the excellent outcomes that have characterized Trinity's heart program for years. It also validates our recent initiatives to invest in leading-edge technologies and to put them in the hands of top-notch professionals who are dedicated to making a difference in patients' lives."
Truven Health highlighted areas of success that separate benchmark hospitals from their peers in an abstract summarizing the Top 50 winners. Some key points included survival rates that were markedly better at benchmark hospitals, particularly for patients receiving bypass surgery and angioplasty; cardiovascular study winners had a substantially lower complications-index than their peers; longer-term outcomes were better at winning hospitals, meaning a smaller index of patients died of any cause within 30 days after admission; winners also had lower readmission rates, with a lower percentage of patients returning to the hospital for any cause within 30 days; winning hospitals complied with proven protocols more closely; winning hospitals released patients sooner than their peers; and the Top 50 cardiovascular hospitals managed all of these clinical gains while still keeping costs lower.
The Truven Health Analytics study was based on 2010 and 2011 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data, 2010 Medicare cost reports, and 2012 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital compare data. The researchers scored hospitals in key performance areas: risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, a group of measures that assess process of care, percentage of coronary bypass patients with internal mammary artery use, 30-day mortality rates, 30 day readmission rates, severity-adjusted average length of stay, and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost.
Truven has major offices in Ann Arbor, Mich., Chicago, and Denver. For more information, visit (www.truvenhealth.com).