Spectrum Health Says Patient Safety and Quality Should Be Top Priority of Open Heart Program

Spectrum Health leadership today said any community discussion about open heart programs in West Michigan should focus first on patient safety and quality outcomes.

“When evaluating another open heart surgery program for Grand Rapids, the discussion should be around patient safety and quality,” said Suzette Jaskie, executive director, Frederik Meijer Heart & Vascular Institute. “Currently, there are six open heart surgery programs about an hour’s drive of Grand Rapids. These programs have proven track records of delivering high quality outcomes for patients. If Metro Health wants to create another open heart program, it should show how its program would enhance the safety and quality of open heart surgery for the community.”

Jaskie said, “This is not about access, quality or cost. Our region already has access to exceptional cardiovascular quality at costs that are lower than the southeast side of the state. Spectrum Health, along with donors in the community, has made significant investments in our program to create an unparalleled community asset. In fact, Spectrum Health’s cardiovascular program ranks among the best in the nation. It is our responsibility to maintain and build this asset so that patients in the region receive the best care possible. The real issue our community leaders should be focused on is patient safety and quality outcomes.”

Many health care quality websites, including Leapfrog, link quality outcomes with volume, comprehensive services, and teams who train and work with each other continuously.

“Clinical research suggests that the more a surgical team does the same procedure together and the higher the volume of patients, the better the clinical results,” explained Richard McNamara, MD, co-executive medical director, Frederik Meijer Heart & Vascular Institute. “More than 100 studies have demonstrated better results at high-volume hospitals with heart surgery, major cancer resections and other higher volume procedures.”

“The open heart program at the Meijer Heart Center and the other established open heart programs in our region have a track record of high quality. At Spectrum Health, our focus has been to offer a full continuum of heart services in a single setting with a team that performs a high volume of procedures. Any new program being considered for state approval must have the surgical volumes to assure that the appropriate clinical expertise is available,” McNamara said.

“When discussing open-heart surgery in Grand Rapids, let’s focus on what’s important to patients and their families – safety and quality,” Jaskie said. “With the programs that currently exist in Michigan, there is already plenty of competition. Anything else is a diversion.”

Spectrum Health Cardiovascular Safety and Quality Facts:

To achieve high quality goals, Spectrum Health closely tracks clinical and safety outcomes for heart conditions including heart attacks, open heart surgery and heart failure. Using nationally defined standards and proven indicators of quality of care, we benchmark our performance against other hospitals in Michigan and the nation.
Thomson Reuters Top 100 Cardiovascular Hospitals in the nation-nine times.
Surgical teams at the Meijer Heart Center performed nearly 900 adult open heart procedures in 2009. The experience of those teams working together has produced excellent results.
Our heart bypass graft surgery program has lower mortality rates than the overall rate nationally.
At Spectrum Health, 96 percent of heart attack patients received percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) within 90 minutes of arrival. The national average is 81percent. Michigan average is 79 percent. Higher percentages are better. At Spectrum Health, the median time from arrival in the emergency room to receiving PCI is 55 minutes. PCI helps to restore blood flow to the area of the heart that has lost blood supply, decreasing the likelihood of damage to the heart.
Angioplasty/stent adult discharges at Spectrum Health are the highest volume in Michigan with 2,204 patients.

Spectrum Health is a not-for-profit health system in West Michigan that offers a full continuum of care through the Spectrum Health Hospital Group, a collection of eight hospitals and more than 170 service sites; the Spectrum Health Medical Group, mmpc® and West Michigan Heart—physician groups totaling more than 500 providers; and Priority Health, a health plan with nearly 580,000 members. Spectrum Health’s 16,000 employees, 1,500 medical staff members and 2,000 volunteers are committed to delivering the highest quality care. The organization provided $79.4 million in community benefit during its 2009 fiscal year. In 2010, Spectrum Health was named a Top 10 Health System by Thomson Reuters.