The annual study — 2008 Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals®: Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success — examined the performance of 970 hospitals by analyzing clinical outcomes for patients diagnosed with heart failure and heart attacks and for those who received coronary bypass surgery and angioplasties.

This is the first time Trinity Regional Medical Center has been recognized with this honor. The 2008 winners were announced November 17 in Modern Healthcare magazine.

"These hospitals provide enormous value to their communities because heart disease is still the nation’s number one killer. They have set the new national standard for cardiovascular disease outcomes, process of care, efficiency, and lower costs," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs in the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters.

The study, in its tenth year, found that the 100 Top Hospitals cardiovascular award winners, as a group, performed 63 percent more bypass surgeries and 42 percent more angioplasties than peer hospitals. This may suggest that performance of bypass surgery is increasingly performed in centers of excellence.

While the average mortality rate for cardiovascular patients is very low (3.4 percent), the mortality rate for bypass surgery was 26 percent lower in the 100 Top Hospitals cardiovascular winners. The award-winning hospitals demonstrated higher performance on the evidence-based core measures published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and cost $1,542 less per case, on average.

"It is an honor to be one of only three hospitals in the state of Iowa to receive this award," stated Tom Tibbitts, CEO of Trinity Health Systems. "This recognition validates our efforts to improve the healthcare provided to our community – you can receive quality care close to home."

In 1999 Trinity Regional Medical Center entered into a business partnership with Iowa Heart – a Des Moines based cardiology group. Trinity’s Cardiac Catheterization Lab performed its first case on April 17, 2000. In the first year, 960 procedures were performed in the Cath Lab. Since that time the number of procedures has nearly doubled to approximately 1850. The excellent quality care is a result of the combination of Trinity’s highly trained medical staff and employees and the expert Cardiology staff of the Iowa Heart Center.

"This prestigious award demonstrates the success of team efforts at Trinity.  Many lives have been saved because patients have received timely cardiac care by a highly skilled medical team. This team includes paramedics, Emergency department staff and physicians, the Cardiac Cath Lab team, Intensive Care staff and the cardiologists, as well as, Laboratory and Radiology services. These departments work together without skipping a beat," shared Sue Thompson, Trinity Regional Medical Center COO. "Having quality cardiac care has had an enormous impact on the overall health of the community and region. Trinity will continue to meet the growing need for cardiology services; services that will literally save lives because time is muscle."

The 100 Top Hospitals study focused on short-term, acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of cardiology patients. Thomson Reuters researchers analyzed 2006 and 2007 Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data, 2007 Medicare cost reports, and data from other sources. They scored hospitals in key performance areas: risk-adjusted medical mortality, risk-adjusted surgical mortality, risk-adjusted complications, core measures score, percentage of coronary bypass patients with internal mammary artery use, procedure volume, severity-adjusted average length of stay, and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost.

The measures were calculated for three classes of hospitals with the following number of winners in each:

• Teaching with cardiovascular residency programs, 30 winners

• Teaching without cardiovascular residency programs, 40 winners

• Community, 30 winners

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More information on this study and other 100 Top Hospitals research is available at www.100tohospitals.com. Copies of the 100 Top Hospitals report can be purchased by calling Thomson Healthcare at (800) 568-3282 or logging on to www.100tophospitals.com.