For a second year in a row, Banner Heart Hospital (BHH) was named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® for cardiovascular care by Thomson healthcare business.
This prestigious annual award for cardiovascular services objectively measures performance on key criteria at the nation’s top performing acute-care hospitals. As the nation’s leading source of information products for the healthcare industry, Thomson provides tools and vital insights that healthcare managers use to improve the performance of their organizations.
Among the best in cardiovascular care
This is the second time in the Heart Hospital’s eight-year history that it has been recognized with this honor. It is one of only five in the state of Arizona to receive this designation.
“This award is a testament to the high level of patient care we provide, the team effort in providing that care and our ability to to work together to obtain and implement best practices," said Chief Executive Officer John Harrington. “There are more than 4,500 cardiovascular programs nationally, so we are honored to be in the Top 100 again.”
Thomson scored facilities in eight key performance areas:
- Risk-adjusted medical patient mortality
- Risk-adjusted surgical patient mortality
- Risk-adjusted complications
- Core measures score
- Percentage of CABG patients with internal mammary artery use
- Procedure volume
- Severity-adjusted average length of stay
- Severity-and-wage-adjusted average cost per case
The measures were calculated for three classes of hospitals with the following number of winners in each:
- Teaching with cardiovascular residency programs, 30 winners
- Teaching without cardiovascular residency programs, 40 winners
- Community, 30 winners
Key findings that make BHH’s care standout:
- If peer hospitals (non-winners) provided the same quality of cardiovascular care as the 100 Top Hospitals facilities, survival rates could increase by more than 8,000 patients each year.
- Complications of care could also decrease in peer hospitals. Approximately 575 additional patients could be complication-free.
- The average 100 Top Hospitals Cardiovascular winner meets the recommended core measures standards for 95 percent of its heart attack (acute myocardial infarction or AMI) patients, compared with 93 percent at the average peer, or non-winning, hospital. Similar differences were seen for congestive heart failure (CHF) patients. Core measures — a set of widely accepted minimum standards of care for all patients, based on scientific evidence — are used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and approved by the National Quality Forum.
- Both medical and surgical cardiovascular patients experience markedly higher survival rates at winning hospitals. For example, winning hospitals had 21 percent fewer deaths than expected for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients while peer hospitals had only 1 percent fewer deaths than expected.
- Winning hospitals performed up to 80 percent more percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) than their peers, and about 50 percent more CABGs. Previous research has shown that procedure volume is a critical factor in outcomes for cardiovascular patients.
- Benchmark hospitals are proving more efficient in treating cardiovascular patients. The average 100 Top Hospitals Cardiovascular winner discharges patients half a day earlier and at an average cost that is about 13 percent less than its peers.
More information
More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com. Copies of the 100 Top Hospitals report can be purchased by calling Solucient at 1 (800) 568-3282 or logging on to www.100tophospitals.com.