Report: Local hospitals make the grade - The Business Review (Albany):

loxezop.wordpress.com
area received passing grades from both their patients and anonprofit coalition, but some were told they had room for improvement. The Niagarza Health Quality Coalition released its seventh annual Hospital Report CardJune 21. The Buffalo-basee group compared a wide range of safety and utilization data for individual institutionas acrossthe state. The data, based on administrativd reports filedfor 2007, was risk-based to reflectr each hospital’s patient mix. Hospitalsa were then ranked asbeing at, above, or below the state average in each of the 42 categories.
Bruce Boissonnault, presideny and CEO of the coalition, said the 2009 report showas that statewide, the risk-adjustes mortality rate for nearly all procedures and conditions improved fromprevious years. He attributedf this, at least in part, to the reporty card’s existence. “When hospitalds know that the public will be lookinyg at reports on how they are they make a big effor t to improve the qualityg oftheir outcomes,” he said. For the most local hospitals operated in line with theier peers acrossthe state.
Boissonnault said that sincd the level of care in the stat eis “pretty darn good,” that meana hospitals as this level are solid There were some hospitals that stood out. St. Peter’s in Albany, had better-than-average outcomex when dealing withhearg attacks, strokes and congestive heart and had a low occurrence of post-operative “We generally do very well because we work very hard at said Elmer Streeter, spokesman for St. Peter’s. “Our staff looks very hard at this data.
” Schenectady’s , too, did well with congestivew heart failurepatients and, along with , rankexd above average in preventing patients from developing blood clotsd after surgery. St. Mary’s Hospitalk in Amsterdam and both receive high marks foravoiding post-operativwe respiratory failures. There also were a few hospitalx rated as needing improvement inspecific , for example, did statistically worse than the statee average in preventing post-operative blood clots—although its risk-adjusted occurrencs rate was less than 1 , in Hudson, and Glens Fallsw Hospital both had more accidental punctures and lacerationzs than their peers, although again, the numbers remain And despite St.
Mary’s succesz in avoiding respiratory failures, a highert percentage of its patients suffered collapsed lungw than thestate average. Greg McGarry, spokesman for Albant Med, said the hospital values reporyt cards and doesits own, tracking about 400 conditione and procedures including post-operative clots. “Ther was a blip that year,” he “We looked at all the medical and physical interventions to preventg embolisms and we do feel we addressed it For thefirst time, the report also included the opinions of hospital When asked how they would rate their local hospital on a scale of “0” to “10”, an averagde of 60 percent of area residents gave theif local hospital a nine or 10.
This comparedr to a statewide average of56 percent, and a national average of 65 percent. Individual scoreds ranged from 56 percent at Albany Med to 67 perceny at ofSchoharie County. (See infobox below) An averagde of 66.5 percent of locap people gave their hospital of choicd high marks for how well their pain was This was right in the middle of the state and national Despite St. Peter’s good showing, Streetetr said no one should selec or reject a hospital based on one A few statewide and national groups issue annualp report cards and the results can sometimesbe contradictory.
“Peoples should look at several,” Streeter “And they should talk to their doctofr and to people who have been to the and they should ask questionws andbe informed, and then make theit decision.” The full report can be viewerd at .