newjerseynewsroom.com

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

New Jersey’s 72 hospitals provide quality care for heart attack victims but are slightly behind hospitals in other states when it comes to providing two procedures involved in the treatment, according to a state Health Department annual report made public Monday.

Overall, when it comes to providing 25 recommended care procedures, the performance of New Jersey hospitals exceeded national scores on 15 of the measures, were equal to national norms on eight others, and were behind on two others.

Every hospital scored 93 or higher out of 100 on overall heart attack treatment but lag national scores on these measures:

Heart attack patients undergoing angioplasty, a procedure to open blocked blood vessels within 90 minutes of hospital arrival. New Jersey scored an 89 and the national score is 91. New Jersey hospitals continue to show improvement in this area, improving 62 percent since 2006.

Cardiac surgery patients whose blood sugar was under control after surgery. New Jersey scored 93 compared with the national rate of 94.

The hospitals’ performance on providing patient safety exceed the national average on 7 of the standards but they lag behind the national average on three indicators: post-operative bleeding or blood clot, post-operative bloodstream infections and birth trauma to newborns. It is the second year that New Jersey hospitals performed below the national average on birth trauma to newborns.

For the second year, hospitals had fewer Central Line-Associated Blood Stream infections than the national baseline, with 20 percent fewer of the infections than expected. The infections in New Jersey for 2009 were similar to the infections seen nationally.

Abdominal hysterectomy infections were similar to the number of infections seen nationally, and Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections were similar to the catheter-associated urinary tract infections seen nationally

The Hospital Performance Report is designed to show where hospital quality improves or needs to improve in the state.

“The report encourages hospitals to deliver the best patient care possible by highlighting performance,” Health and Senior Services Commissioner Mary E. O’ Dowd said Monday. “It serves as a guide to the department and individual hospitals by assessing current quality of care and areas for improvement.””

The report scores hospitals in three general categories: patient safety, healthcare- associated infections and the percentage of time hospitals delivered the recommended treatment for specific health conditions.

"The Health Department added several new measures to this year’s report. Recognizing the large impact that healthcare-associated infections have on the health of patients, the Department expanded reporting to include three new healthcare-associated infection measures: Catheter-associated urinary tract infection, surgical site infection after coronary artery bypass graft surgery, and surgical site infection after abdominal hysterectomy.