NUMC RANKS IN TOP 10% OF THE NATION, WITH 100% PERFORMANCE IN PROVIDING CARE TO HEART ATTACK PATIENTS AS PER NAPH DATA BRIEF

NUMC RANKS IN TOP 10% OF THE NATION, WITH 100% PERFORMANCE IN PROVIDING CARE TO HEART ATTACK PATIENTS AS PER NAPH DATA BRIEF

NUMC CITED FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE IN HEART ATTACK PROCESS AND OUTCOME MEASURES BY NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC HOSPITALS

NUMC IS INNOVATOR IN INCREASING USE OF EVIDENCE-BASED CARE AND BOOSTING OUTCOMES RELATED TO HEART ATTACK

East Meadow, NY…….Arthur A. Gianelli, President/CEO of the NuHealth System, announces that the Nassau University Medical Center has ranked in the top 10% of the nation, with 100% performance in providing care to heart attack patients, as included in a recently released Data Brief from the National Association of Public Hospitals ( www.naph.org ). Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US and is a major cause of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
                
In a letter to Gianelli, Bruce Siegel, MD, MPH – CEO, NAPH, indicated that NAPH had released a Data Brief on how NAPH members perform on publicly-reported measures of care for patients with heart failure and heart attack:  “We featured your hospital in this report due to your superior performance on these quality measures. We look forward to hearing more about your successes, and hope to provide you with future opportunities that help further your quality improvement efforts.”

Gianelli expressed his pride and gratitude to the NUMC staff upon this achievement: “These outcome improvements are a reflection of our commitment to quality care and the interdisciplinary collaboration between the cardiology, emergency medicine, quality management and our nursing departments. We are proud that this data on AMI (acute myocardial infarction) core measure set, reflected in the NAPH Data Brief, shows our continued commitment to quality patient care. Now, we are striving to reach the 10% for heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care as well.” Gianelli went on to add: “Our cardiology team, under the leadership of NSLIJ physician and NUMC department chairman Sanjay Doddamani, MD,  has worked closely with Steven J. Walerstein, MD, FACP, our medical director, Maureen P. Shannon, our vice president of quality management,  Anthony Boutin, MD, chair of the emergency department,  and our nursing department, under senior vice president, Kathy Skarka, for achieving this important recognition and for driving our core measures improvement efforts.”

NAPH continually tracks members’ progress on publicly-reported Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) quality performance measures. The May 2011 NAPH Data Brief provides information on how NAPH members, as a group, perform on publicly-reported measures of care for patients with heart failure and heart attack. As heart attack is the leading cause of death for men and women in the US, it is important to measure and compare hospitals on how often patients receive evidence-based treatments and on patient outcomes after treatment. CMS collects and reports data on six process measures and two outcome measures related to patients with heart attacks.

Core measures are evidenced based process measures that influence a patient’s outcome for a given diagnosis. CMS has required reporting of them for the last decade. NUMC is now in the top decile among NAPH hospitals for the AMI set. The set consists of different indicators: aspirin on arrival, at discharge, smoking cessation, beta blocker at discharge, and specific medications for left ventricular failure. NUMC has been at 100% on those indicators since the first quarter of 2009.

The NAPH Data Brief based its conclusions on www.whynotthebest.org website, a private foundation in the Commonwealth Fund, with its methodology consistent with CMS and www.hospitalcompare.com  websites, using core measures, readmissions, and mortality. NAPH members, as a group, outperform or are equal to the national average on all forms of heart failure process measures and a majority has implemented specific interventions aimed at reducing readmissions for patients with heart failure. NUMC is tied with Memorial Hospital Pembroke in Florida and Alameda County Medical Center in California for first in the nation for providing care to heart attack patients.

“We are proud to have been included in the NAPH high performance in heart attack process and outcome measures, with NUMC ranking among first in the nation for providing care to heart attack patients. Key innovations in process from arrival in the ED, rapid triaging, delivery of evidenced based medications and transitioning the patient home with medications and post-discharge follow up have helped standardize our approach” said Dr. Doddamani, cardiology chair. He added, “We will also be presenting data on reducing heart failure readmissions at the national association of public hospitals annual symposium in Chicago June 23 2011.  Major wins in this area too have been achieved after the recent launch of our heart failure center.”

Based on NUMC’s recent significant improvement and/or consistent high performance on core measures, NUMC has been invited to participate in a new online forum, hosted by the Joint Commission, providing accredited hospitals that have attained excellent performance on core measures, with an opportunity to share their success stories with the larger community of accredited organizations. The goal of this forum is to provide for learning how peer organizations have attained and maintained their high ratings. The core measures included are: adult smoking cessation advice counseling, heart failure discharge instructions and smoking cessation advice counseling, pneumonia adult smoking cessation advice counseling and pneumonia influenza vaccination.

Improvement of core measures scores was identified as a corporate strategic performance improvement project for 2009-2010. NUMC’s collaborative efforts among various clinical departments have led to outcome improvements, achieved through the use of newly developed patient education materials, modification of existing forms, strict check-off lists, AMI check off list on admission through the emergency department and on patient discharge. This collaborative effort involved the cardiology department, the emergency department, the nursing department, the medical director’s office and the quality management departments of both NUMC and the North Shore-LIJ health system.

ABOUT NUHEALTH
NuHealth is a Long Island health care organization delivering essential medical care and disease and lifestyle management to everyone at every stage of life.  Also known as Nassau Health Care Corporation, NuHealth is a public benefit corporation managing the operations of Nassau Medical Center, A. Holly Patterson Extended Care and a network of Family Health Centers that bring primary and specialty care out into the community.  By emphasizing wellness, cultural sensitivity and collaborative efforts with the North Shore-LIJ Health System, NuHealth is working to make good care more affordable and easier to access.

For more information about NuHealth or its Centers of Care, visit www.nuhealth.net.