The State Health Department credits this significant improvement in patient survival rates in part to the sharing of performance data with hospitals and physicians. Some hospitals with higher than average mortality rates in prior years, have evaluated their procedures and made changes that resulted in improved survival rates for patients. Mortality rates are also published for surgeons who performed the surgery during the three-year period 1994 through 1996. A total of 20,078 coronary bypass surgeries were performed statewide in 1996, up from 19,283 in 1995 and 18,051 in 1994. The risk-adjusted mortality rates varied among hospitals, ranging from 1.10 to 5.93 percent.
Risk adjusted rates take differences in the complexity of cases into account in evaluating outcomes.
St. Joseph s performed 812 coronary bypass surgeries, with only 7 deaths. Three Manhattan based hospitals had bypass surgery death rates significantly above the statewide average in 1996. Lenox Hill Hospital performed 860 surgeries with a risk adjusted death rate of 3.64 percent, St. Vincent s Hospital and Medical Center performed 522 surgeries, resulting in a risk adjusted death rate of 4.32 percent, and St. Luke s-Roosevelt Hospital had 430 cases with a risk adjusted mortality rate of 4.25 percent. Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan also had a high mortality rate of 4.52 percent for 94 surgeries. The relatively small number of surgeries performed by these hospitals results in a high statistical margin for error.