The CVPH Medical Center cardiac unit has repeated its five-star rating of last year. What a tribute to such a young program to be declared as good as it gets.
The Champlain Valley Heart Center has been in business since 2005. In that time, it has ascended from the status of novice to the best in its field.
That rating comes from HealthGrades, the leading independent health-care-ratings organization in the nation. This is what HealthGrades' Web site has to say about the study:
"HealthGrades has released the 12th-annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality in America Study, which examined nearly 40 million Medicare hospitalization records for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. The study looks at trends in mortality and complication rates and also provides the foundation for HealthGrades' quality ratings of procedures and diagnoses at each individual hospital.
"The largest annual study of patient outcomes at each of the nation's 5,000 non-federal hospitals found a wide gap in quality between the nation's best hospitals and all others.
"According to the study, patients at highly rated hospitals have a 52-percent lower chance of dying compared with the U.S. hospital average, a quality chasm that has persisted for the last decade even as mortality rates, in general, have declined."
That exhaustive examination has concluded that CVPH's Heart Center belongs in the top 5 percent in the nation for angioplasty procedures. It is ranked in the top 10 in the state for all cardiac services and for cardiology services and in the top five in the state for angioplasty. Those numbers earn the Heart Center a five-star rating, tops in the company's evaluation system.
Not only does HealthGrades look at records of millions of patients and 5,000 hospitals, it takes into account the condition of patients when they entered their respective hospitals. In other words, it even looks at how sick patients were when they were admitted in order to thoroughly evaluate how good a job the hospital really did.
Here's an interesting conclusion: If all hospitals performed as well as CVPH on the 17 procedures examined, 224,537 Medicare lives could potentially have been saved from 2006 through 2008.
A whimsical definition of an expert is "a guy from out of town." But, knowing the lengths to which HealthGrades has gone to compare the efficacies of hospitals nationwide and knowing how highly the company thought and continues to think of CVPH over the past couple of years, our question is this: Why would anybody with heart problems go to Albany or Burlington or anywhere else? The best care available is offered right here in Plattsburgh.
Opinion
EDITORIAL: CVPH heart unit still unsurpassed
- Editorial
-
-
Editorial: The real reason for the holiday
Today is for creating new memories. Tomorrow, we should pause to remember. Memorial Day weekend, being the first big holiday of the sun season, is all about barbecues, picnics and outdoor activities; it is all about family and friends. After a North Country winter, even a fairly mild one like we just had, we need to relax in the sun and enjoy the outdoors.
- Editorial: Bright future, looking ahead
- Editorial: Mail cuts will be fact of life
-
Editorial: The real reason for the holiday
- Cheers and Jeers
-
-
Cheers and Jeers: May 28, 2012
JEERS to people who dump garbage at the mouth of the Saranac River, and CHEERS to cemetery caretakers.
-
Cheers and Jeers: May 28, 2012
- Letters to the Editor
- Speakout
- In My Opinion
-
-
In My Opinion: A new focus for mental well-being
The opening of Behavorial Health Services North's Center for Well-Being at 2155 State Route 22B in Morrisonville on April 23 reflects the opening of a new chapter in the story of the treatment of mental illness now under way in our country, Behavorial Health Services North CEO Harry Cook writes.
-
In My Opinion: A new focus for mental well-being
