El Camino Hospital Named a Top 100 Hospital in Cardiovascular Care

12/22/2006

El Camino Hospital has been named one of the nation's "100 Top Hospitals" for cardiovascular care by Solucient, an information company serving the health care industry. El Camino Hospital was one of 30 community hospitals across the country named in the study and one of only two in California to be named in the 2006 Top 100 Hospitals list.

The eighth edition of the Solucient 100 Top Hospitals: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success study, analyzed data from acute care hospitals nationwide to set performance benchmarks in four cardiovascular areas: acute myocardial infarction; congestive heart failure; coronary artery bypass grafts; and percutaneous coronary interventions. The report uses data from publicly available 2004 and 2005 Medicare data and 2005 Medicare cost reports. The top performing hospitals in the study (30 community winners), teaching with cardiovascular residency programs (30 winners) and teaching without cardiovascular residency programs (40 winners) set national benchmarks for clinical process, outcomes and efficiency, as well as reasonable cost.

"Being named as one of the nation's top hospitals for cardiac care is a significant validation of the caliber of the physicians and staff who provide cardiovascular care to our patients," says Ken Graham, chief executive officer. "We're proud to provide our community with heart care that ranks among the best in the country."

Solucient scored facilities in eight key performance areas: risk adjusted medical mortality; risk adjusted surgical risk-adjusted complications; core measures score; percentage of CABG (coronary artery bypass graft) patients with internal mammary artery use; procedure volume, severity-adjusted average length of stay; and wage and severity-adjusted average cost.

The study shows that if peer hospitals (non winning hospitals) provided the same quality of care as the 100 Top Hospitals facilities, survival rates could increase by more than 8,000 patients each year; complications could also decrease. Approximately 575 additional patients could be complication free.

For more information about the study and for a complete list of winners, go to www.100tophospitals.com.