Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital Gets Three-Star Rating
Posted/updated on: November 16, 2011 at 3:59 pm
TYLER — Officials with Trinity Mother Frances Hospitals and Clinics announced receiving a three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) National Database. The rating places all 362 cardiac surgical procedures performed at The Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital for one year ending June 30 in the top 15 percent of cardiothoracic programs that submitted data. The Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital is located on the campus of Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler.
According to information provided by STS, National Database participants engage in the process of collecting STS data and utilization of Database-derived information for the purpose of local and national improvement in the quality of cardiothoracic surgical care. Avoidance of mortality, avoidance of morbidity, use of the internal mammary artery and compliance for recommendation with medication usage are the criteria used to determine a program’s star rating.
“This is the first time we’ve received a three-star rating,” said James A. Caccitolo, MD, chief of cardiothoracic surgery section, Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital and sponsor of the data collection program. “It is the result of a great effort by a number of individuals. We have been collecting data here for a number of years now and we have seen steady improvement. With each data harvest, we have implemented programs
and changes. So we are very proud that we were able to achieve a three-star rating.”
Data submission to STS is not mandatory, but officials said that monitoring, submitting and analyzing the information helps improve patient care.
“It is important that we identify areas of improvement,” said Dr. Caccitolo. “We think it is important to maintain outcome-based statistics so that we know how we are doing and we can improve our efforts to treat patients in the best way possible.”
The cardiothoracic team at the Louis and Peaches Owen Heart Hospital includes Dr. Caccitolo, William F. Turner, Jr., MD and Neelan S. Doolabh, MD.
Since Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler launched the area’s first cardiac program 28 years ago, more than 11,000 open heart surgeries, 60,000 cardiac catheterizations, 638,000 cardiac procedures, and hundreds of robotic heart surgeries have been performed.
