By Nick Buglione and Angela Marshall
A statewide hospital report card recently released gave low marks to Nassau University Medical Center in certain areas of health care.
When compared with the performance of other New York hospitals, NUMC fell below average in four out of six categories it was tested in. Those categories dealt with its treatment of heart attacks, strokes, gastrointestinal hemorrhages and pneumonia. The hospital met the state standard in congestive heart failure and hip fracture care.
The report, developed by the Alliance for Quality Health Care, examined patient mortality rates in hospitals throughout the state in as many as 13 categories and compared hospitals- performance with the state average. Information for the study was based on hospital billing records from 2002.
NUMC released only a statement in response to the report, focusing specifically on improving performance in pneumonia care, in which it has a 14.2 percent mortality rate.
We are in the process of instituting a pneumonia pathways based on best practices and standardized care to obtain the best results, the hospital said in the statement. We are investigating the data and, pending our results, we will address any identified issues. We continue to be proactive in improving the quality of care for all our patients.
In the last few years the East Meadow-based hospital has caught flak on a number of issues, ranging from patient care, to gaping financial deficits to the ethical behavior of its administrators.
While Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, and St. Francis in Roslyn all fared better than their counterparts, NUMC was not alone in its shortcomings.
Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre too fell below state averages in four of seven categories. South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside fared a little better, failing to meet the state standard in three out of seven categories.
Officials from both of those hospitals, however, released statements questioning the report-s methodology.
Although the data was risk-adjusted to take into consideration other variables in patient health that might have played a part in the outcome of a procedure, some hospital administrators say that isn-t enough.
Mercy representatives say the data used was administrative in nature and did not contain the in-depth review of patient medical records required to evaluate the quality of care actually provided to patients.
Meanwhile, South Nassau said in its statement that it had identified some of the deficient categories cited in the report as areas to target in its performance-improvement plan. The hospital has taken aggressive and effective measures that have reduced mortality significantly in both areas in 2003. Subsequent data for 2003 will validate this.
This was the second report released by Alliance, a coalition of businesses, health care plans and other organizations. Bruce Boissonnault, president of the Niagara Health Quality Coalition and lead for the project, said the organization is concerned about the high number of deaths due to hospital errors, and created the report to help emphasize the need for quality to improve.
Boissonnault said the average heart patient spends more time researching their next car purchase then looking into medical care.
The full report can be viewed at www.myhealthfinder.com.
