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Boulder Community Hospital's Cardiac Care Services has received several acknowledgements for its outstanding quality and safety. BCH received multiple awards from CareChex, the medical quality rating service of the Delta Group -- the nation's largest privately-held health care information service company.
In addition, BCH earned high marks for treating heart attack patients from the American College of Cardiology's Cardiovascular Data Registry.
Award Winning Cardiac Care Services
According to the 2011 quality awards from CareChex, BCH is the safest hospital in Colorado for major cardiac surgery, and also ranks in the top 10% of hospitals nationwide for patient safety in this important area. In addition, the hospital’s interventional coronary care services received double recognition, being ranked in the top 10% of Colorado hospitals for both medical excellence and patient safety. Click here to see our rating.
More About CareChex
We believe CareChex provides the most statistically accurate ratings of hospital quality. CareChex provides a comprehensive evaluation of the three major components of medical quality – the process of care, outcomes of care and patient satisfaction. Processes of care are the actual procedures hospitals use to treat patients for specific medical problems. Evidence has proven that some processes are more effective than others. For example, CareChex looks at the percentage of heart attack patients who are given aspirin when they arrive at the hospital. Aspirin is an important initial treatment because it can help keep blood clots from forming and dissolve blood clots that can cause heart attacks. CareChex also does a statistical analysis of the outcomes of a hospital’s care. Is the overall mortality rate what you would expect for the types of patients that hospital treats? Is the rate of medical complications average or lower than expected? The final element of the CareChex evaluation is an analysis of patient satisfaction. Do patients feel the doctors and nurses communicate appropriately? Is the staff responsive to patient requests and needs? The information for the CareChex analysis comes from publicly available data bases and includes virtually all general, acute-care, non-federal U.S. hospitals. The 2011 CareChex analysis consists of data from 2007-2009. Click here to learn about BCH’s other CareChex awards. You can see the CareChex ratings by visiting the CareChex website.
Fast and Effective Heart Attack Treatment
Boulder Community Hospital has a low mortality rate for heart attack patients thanks to a very fast treatment system, according to the American College of Cardiology’s National Cardiovascular Data Registry (ACC-NCDR). The NCDR collects clinical data in order to improve cardiovascular care across the United States through benchmarking. Today, more than 2,200 hospitals nationwide participate in the NCDR, which is considered the preeminent cardiovascular data repository in the country. Exceptionally Low Mortality Rate
According to the NCDR, between April 2009 and June 2010, BCH’s mortality rate for heart attack patients was 0.79 compared with the average rate of 1.42 for all 1,100 hospitals participating in that element of the registry. Mortality rate was calculated by dividing the number of patients who died in the hospital during or following a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) by the overall number of patients who had PCI procedures performed. This important quality measure has been endorsed by the National Quality Forum, a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the quality of American health care. Rapid Response Time Saves Lives
BCH has one of the fastest response rates during a heart attack of all hospitals in the nation. This quality measure, referred to as “Median Time to PCI”, is the time span (in minutes) between a heart attack patient arriving at BCH and when that patient’s blocked artery is opened up via PCI. Between April 2009 and June 2010, BCH’s median time was 52 minutes compared with an average of 64 minutes for all 1,100 hospitals participating in the registry. These results reflect the outstanding coordination between community-based emergency medical services, the BCH Cath Lab team, and the hospital’s interventional cardiologists. CathPCI Registry
These important quality measures come from NCDR’s CathPCI Registry, a voluntary data registry in which participating hospitals collect and submit data about patients. Specifically, the CathPCI Registry analyzes how well hospitals treat heart attack patients who receive diagnostic catheterization and/or PCIs. Diagnostic catheterization is a procedure done to study the arteries that bring blood to the heart muscle and to check the function of the main pumping chamber of the heart. PCI, which includes angioplasty and stent placement, is a procedure to restore blood flow to the heart muscle. This is done by inserting a small balloon catheter or stent into a patient’s artery through the groin or arm, snaking that catheter/stent through the artery to the narrowing, and then inflating the balloon/stent to open the narrowed section. Currently, more than 1,100 hospitals nationwide participate in the ACC-NCDR CathPCI Registry. Each participant receives detailed reports comparing their individual performance to the aggregated data of the entire group.
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