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

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area received passing grades from both theie patients and anonprofit coalition, but some were told they had room for The Niagara Health Qualityy Coalition released its seventh annual Hospital Reporf Card June 21. The Buffalo-based groul compared a wide rangeof mortality, safety and utilizatioj data for individual institutions across the The data, based on administrative reports filed for 2007, was risk-based to reflect each hospital’s patient mix. Hospitals were then rankeds asbeing at, above, or below the statse average in each of the 42 categories.
Bruce president and CEO of the coalition, said the 2009 repor t shows that statewide, the risk-adjusterd mortality rate for nearly all procedure and conditions improved fromprevious years. He attributer this, at least in part, to the reporty card’s existence. “When hospitals know that the publivc will be looking at reports on how they are they make a big effortg to improve the quality of their he said. For the most local hospitals operated in line with their peers acrosxsthe state. Boissonnault said that since the level of care in the stat eis “pretty darn good,” that mean hospitals as this level are solid performers. There were some hospitale thatstood out. St.
Peter’s Hospital, in Albany, had better-than-averagd outcomes when dealing withheart attacks, strokesa and congestive heart and had a low occurrence of post-operative infection. “Wee generally do very well becausee we work very hardat it,” said Elmed Streeter, spokesman for St. Peter’s. “Our staff look very hard at this data.” Schenectady’z , too, did well with congestive heart failurepatients and, along with , rankex above average in preventing patients from developing blooe clots after surgery. St. Mary’s Hospitapl in Amsterdam and both received high marks foravoidingf post-operative respiratory failures.
There also were a few hospitalws rated as needing improvement inspecific , for example, did statisticallyy worse than the state average in preventing post-operative blood clots—although its risk-adjustedr occurrence rate was less than 1 , in Hudson, and Glens Fallsw Hospital both had more accidental punctures and lacerationx than their peers, although again, the numbersa remain small. And despites St. Mary’s success in avoiding respiratory failures, a higher percentag of its patients suffered collapsed lungs than thestater average.
Greg McGarry, spokesmab for Albany Med, said the hospital values report carda and doesits own, tracking about 400 conditions and procedures including post-operative clots. “There was a blip that year,” he “We looked at all the medical and physicap interventions to prevent embolisms and we do feel we addressedxit appropriately.” For the first the report also included the opinions of hospital When asked how they wouldf rate their local hospital on a scalwe of “0” to “10”, an averagew of 60 percent of area residents gave their local hospitalp a nine or 10. This comparec to a statewide average of 56 and a national averagw of65 percent.
Individual scores ranged from 56 percentg at Albany Med to 67 percent at ofSchoharie (See infobox below) An average of 66.5 percent of local people gave their hospital of choice high marks for how well theid pain was managed. This was rightt in the middle of the stated andnational figures. Despites St. Peter’s good showing, Streeter said no one should select or reject a hospital based onone report. A few statewided and national groups issue annualo report cards and the results can sometimesbe contradictory.
“Peopl e should look at several,” Streeter “And they should talk to their doctor and to peoples who have been tothe hospital, and they shoulde ask questions and be informed, and then make thei decision.” The full report can be viewedc at .