| Area Hospitals Ranked Above Standards |
| Thursday, January 8, 2009 8:52:12 AM - Middletown Ohio |
By: Tara Kunkle
Cincinnati Health Council recently took data on how well hospitals are treating heart failure, heart attack, pneumonia, stroke and different common conditions that happened in 2007. With this information open to the public it gives patients the opportunity to talk with their physicians about what they know.
The four hospitals in the area are Atrium Medical Center, The Fort Hamilton Hospital, Mercy Hospital Fairfield, and McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital. Each of these hospitals scored equal to or better than state and national averages of hospitals. There was only one category where Atrium scored below average and that was mortality rate for stroke. This category includes both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke.
Even though Atrium scored better than average for treatment of ischemic stroke, the number for hemorrhagic skewed because the hospital did not have an on-call emergency neurosurgeon to treat those patients. The hospital cannot transfer patients needing end-of-line care to a local hospice program.
Atrium has received the Gold Seal of Approval for stroke care from the Joint Commission for two consecutive years.
With congestive heart failure the average of area hospitals dispensing all recommended treatments for patients increased from 76 percent in 2006 to 82 percent in 2007. For heart attack patients the average was 86 percent which is up from 82 percent in 2005. Treatment for pneumonia increased at 75 percent from 64 percent in 2006.
This report is part of the Hospital Quality Improvement Project which is an initiative of the Health Council and the Ohio Hospital Association.
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