USA’s Lowest Heart Attack Mortality Rate
The Regional Heart Center’s medical director discusses what it takes to create the nation’s best hospital for heart attack care
Michael Rossi, M.D.
Chief, Division of Cardiology
Medical Director, Regional Heart Center
Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network
- Who compiled the data that shows Lehigh Valley Hospital has the nation’s lowest heart attack mortality rate?
- How did Lehigh Valley Hospital achieve these results?
- How does MI Alert for Heart Attacks provide fast care?
- How many heart attack patients do you care for, and how many heart procedures do you perform annually?
- What does the future hold for heart attack care at Lehigh Valley Hospital?
Who compiled the data that shows Lehigh Valley Hospital has the nation’s lowest heart attack mortality rate?
As illustrated in the following chart, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) collected data from the approximately 4,000 U.S. hospitals that provide heart attack care. The data reveals that Lehigh Valley Hospital has the lowest heart attack 30-day mortality rate in the country, 11.6 percent. The average rate in U.S. hospitals is 16.1 percent. Read about it in the Aug. 20, 2008 edition of USA TODAY. Heart attack mortality rate is widely viewed as a yardstick for a hospital’s overall performance.
How did Lehigh Valley Hospital achieve these results?
Teamwork is required to be the nation’s best hospital for heart attack care. Our team includes cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, emergency medicine specialists, nurses, and ancillary staff members who are committed to excellence in heart attack care. We took a significant step forward 10 years ago when our team gathered to create a program that provides fast care for patients suffering the most serious form of heart attack, an ST elevation myocardial infarction (MI). Their work led to the creation of our MI Alert for Heart Attacks program.
How does MI Alert for Heart Attacks provide fast care?
We educated paramedics and EMTs to use a 12-lead EKG to diagnose a heart attack in the field. They communicate the EKG results via radio to an emergency physician. If the physician agrees with the diagnosis, an MI Alert is initiated to set the hospital’s heart attack care team in motion.
With the ambulance en route, emergency and cardiac catheterization lab staff prepare for the patient’s arrival. When the patient arrives and the ST elevation MI is confirmed, the patient is quickly taken to the cardiac catheterization lab where staff is ready to perform a life-saving angioplasty. This efficient process allows us to achieve door-to-balloon times well below the 90-minute “gold standard” for heart attack care.
We’re making high quality heart attack care available to more people through our partnership with regional hospitals. When heart attack patients arrive at hospitals in Hazleton, Lehighton, Pottsville, Palmerton, Sellersville and Ashland, a MedEvac helicopter or ambulance transports them to Lehigh Valley Hospital for life-saving care.
How many heart attack patients do you care for, and how many heart procedures do you perform annually?
We care for more heart attack patients than any other hospital in the state, and are the third largest heart program in Pennsylvania. Because of our high patient volume, our digital cardiac catheterization lab is staffed around the clock every day of the year.
We perform 1,000 heart bypass and valve surgeries, 10,000 diagnostic and therapeutic cardiac catheterizations, and 1,300 diagnostic and therapeutic electrophysiology procedures every year. Our mortality rates for heart care and heart surgery are consistently among the best in the state. Our outcomes support the evidence that says when doctors perform more surgeries and procedures, patients have better results.
What does the future hold for heart attack care at Lehigh Valley Hospital?
Our MI Alert team continues to identify opportunities for improvement during bi-monthly meetings. Because time is heart muscle, team members examine door-to-balloon times, look for trends and search for ways to shave off more minutes.
We also are standardizing our treatment of all patients with acute coronary syndromes, even those who do not suffer an ST elevation MI. In keeping with our approach of being appropriately aggressive when selecting patients for a catheterization procedure, we’ve found that high-risk patients can derive the greatest benefit from undergoing an intervention. We will continue to examine outcomes to create a treatment algorithm for all patients with acute coronary syndromes.
This page last updated 10/24/08 04:04 PM
