Hospital Ranks Among The Nation's Best Second Year in a Row

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: July 16, 2009
Contact: Leighann Zagami Dreyer 
508-334-8232

WORCESTER - For the second consecutive year, UMass Memorial Medical Center is the number one hospital in New England for surviving a heart attack. It also ranks among the top five hospitals nationwide, for a second year in a row, according to a nationally recognized health outcomes measurement released this week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
 
"Our continued focus at UMass Memorial on quality in all aspects of our cardiovascular care has been a major contributor to our excellence in treating heart attack patients," said John Keaney Jr., MD, chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at UMass Memorial. Dr. Keaney noted that the quality performance of the Medical Center's Heart and Vascular Center of Excellence has also been recognized by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons with its highest designation for three years in a row. And, in 2008, UMass Memorial was named a Top 100 Hospital for Cardiovascular Benchmarks by Thomson Reuters.  

Additionally, the Medical Center's rapid response cardiac team, along with regional emergency medical service providers, has significantly shortened the timeframe between a patient's arrival in the emergency room and having a procedure that restores blood flow to the heart. This period is called the door-to-balloon-time (DTB). UMass Memorial averages 60 minutes while the national standard is 90 minutes. Because of our success in this area, UMass Memorial now works with other hospitals to help improve their DTB times.

To further enhance the care provided to cardiac patients, UMass Memorial recently added a Heart and Vascular Step-down Unit. "This unit, along with cardiac ICU, in-unit cardiovascular diagnostic testing, and the region's most state-of-the-art operating rooms, and catheterization and electrophysiology labs, ensures we remain a national leader in treating cardiovascular patients," said Dr. Keaney.

Out of 4,600 hospitals across the nation our reported mortality for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is well below the national average and places UMass Memorial in the 99.9 percentile. "UMass Memorial is the only hospital to rank in the top five for the past two years," said Robert Phillips, MD, PhD, director of the UMass Memorial Heart and Vascular Center of Excellence, and a senior vice president at UMass Memorial Medical Center. "This represents a commitment on behalf of all of our doctors, nurses, support staff, emergency medical personnel and our numerous regional partners."

CMS developed its health outcome measures tool to improve quality in all American hospitals. The organization estimated the 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMRs) for Medicare patients hospitalized with a principal discharge diagnosis of AMI. CMS then estimated the RSMRs from AMI for each hospital within 30 days of submission.