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Monday, October 20, 2003 – MeritCare Listed Among America's Top Hospitals In Money Magazine for Heart Services
MeritCare has been listed in a special health report published by Money Magazine titled, "America's Top Hospitals – The Best Health Care For Your Family" as one of the best hospitals in the nation in two areas of heart care – coronary bypass surgery and heart attack.
Money's list includes the best hospitals for 20 common medical procedures. Hospitals were chosen based on how many procedures they did, and on quality measures such as mortality and complication rates. Data was obtained from HealthGrades, a Denver based healthcare rating and information company. MeritCare is the only hospital in North Dakota on the list and is one of five in the tri-state region.
Excerpts from the article:
- "When it comes to surgery … one piece of data has been found to point to a good result: volume, or how often the surgery is performed. It's important to distinguish between two types of volume: how often a hospital does an operation and how many cases a doctor handles…. 'The number of procedures a hospital has done clearly has a significant impact on patients' risk of dying.' … [and] the more technical the operation – cardiovascular ones, for example – the more the surgeon's experience matters."
- Money's list features the top five medical centers in the nation by region (Northeast, Sunbelt, Great Lakes, Great Plains and West Coast), MeritCare is listed in the Great Plains region.
- The list includes the top three doctors at each hospital with the most volume for a year's period of time for each procedure. MeritCare Heart Center cardiovascular surgeons listed under "coronary bypass surgery" are Drs. Jim Burdine, Ajit Damle, and Roxanne Newman. MeritCare cardiologists listed under "heart attack" are Drs. John "Jack" Crary, Jon Dickson and Craig Kouba.
- MeritCare's Heart Center team also includes cardiologists Drs. David Clardy, Stefan De Boel, David Duval, Kushal Handa, Manuel Otero, Christopher Pierce and Wallace Radtke.
- "…measures like volume and mortality are valuable tools for health-care consumers."
- "For each area, HealthGrades started with the five-star hospitals in its database for each procedure. Then, because… research has found volume to be the best proxy for quality, HealthGrades narrowed the list to the five with the highest volume."