NEWS
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bobbie Boyd, Director of Public Relations
& Community Outreach
Advanced Cardiac Specialists
Cell Phone: (602) 570-7069 E-mail:
bobbie.boyd@acs-im.com
4,400 ADDITIONAL HEART DISEASE PATIENTS COULD SURVIVE
EACH YEAR IF ALL HOSPITALS PERFORMED AT THESE LEVELS
100 TOP HEART HOSPITALS
IDENTIFIED BY 2002 U.S. RANKING
Phoenix (January 8, 2003)
- A new study released by Solucient, a
leading source of health care business intelligence, identified the country’s
top 100 cardiovascular benchmark hospitals and finds that if all hospitals
performed at the level of these facilities, an additional 4,400 cardiovascular
patients could survive each year. In
addition, the nation could save $880 million annually in health care costs.
The study also finds that
post-surgical infection rates could decrease by 18 percent in non-winning
hospitals and the average length of stay for cardiac patients could decrease by
more than half a day. This would eliminate
402,000 patient hospital days per year; again, if all hospitals reached this
benchmark performance level.
Cardiovascular disease is
the leading cause of death in this country, killing nearly one million
Americans each year, according to the American Heart Association.
Solucient’s annual
cardiovascular study identifies hospitals that display superior performance in
the clinical management of cardiovascular disease. The purpose is to provide benchmarks to improve the standard of care
in cardiology. The study focused on
hospitals that treated cardiology patients between 1999 and 2000 with at least
30* unique cases in the following:
¨
Acute myocardial
infarction (heart attack)
¨
Congestive heart
failure**
¨
Percutaneous
transluminal coronary angioplasty**
¨
Coronary artery bypass
graft**
*Note that the top 100
cardiovascular hospitals have higher procedure volumes than their peers. This remained an important factor in
outcomes.
**Median complication
rates were lower and average survival rates were markedly higher at the
benchmark hospitals, particularly for patients with congestive heart failure
and patients undergoing angioplasty or bypass surgery.
Phoenix Memorial Hospital
was one of only three Arizona hospitals included in the benchmark ranking
recognizing Advanced Cardiac Specialists’ cardiovascular program [then housed
at Phoenix Memorial Hospital] headed by Robert M. Siegel, M.D., Medical
Director of Advanced Cardiac Specialists and [then] Chief of Cardiovascular
Services at Phoenix Memorial Hospital.
Additional information
can be found at http://www.100TopHospitals.com.