By Angela Marshall
All South Shore hospitals performed at or below state averages for the studied conditions. Only three North Shore Hospitals were rated as better than average for some of the conditions.
Of area hospitals, South Nassau Communities Hospital fared better than Mercy Medical Center in three of seven major categories: the treatment of heart attacks, congestive heart failure and hip fractures. Mercy surpassed South Nassau in the treatment of pneumonia. Twenty-five categories were studied overall; ratings were not provided for services not offered or where there was insufficient data.
The study, commissioned by two organizations dedicated to improving health-care quality, used stars to rate hospitals, assigning one star for higher-than-anticipated death rates, two stars for the state average and three stars for lower-than-anticipated death rates.
The data used in the study was gathered from billing information filed by hospitals with the state Department of Health in 2001. The records included the patient's age, gender, diagnosis, treatment, accompanying medical conditions and discharge status.
The report was developed to help patients make informed decisions about their health care, according to its creators, the Alliance for Quality Health Care and the Niagara Health Quality Coalition.
In order to provide direct comparisons, the data was "risk adjusted" to compensate for differences in patient demographics. According to the study, "The risk-adjusted rate is the best estimate of what the hospital's rates would have been if the hospital had a mix of patients identical to a national-average patient mix for that year."
Dr. Howard Sussman, chief medical officer and vice president of medical affairs at Mercy, was disappointed with the hospital's results. He said that like all new reports, this one will have to be studied to see if improvements can be made in the way it is conducted and scored. Still, Sussman didn't knock the study's validity, saying, "Everyone takes the same test."
Sussman said he believes Mercy provides better-than-average care in many areas, but those areas were not the subject of this study. Mercy's spokesperson, Devera Lynn, said the hospital was ranked number one in orthopedic care on Long Island.
Sussman said the hospital is always striving to improve its quality of care and the results of this study will help the hospital "dig a little deeper."
South Nassau could not be reached for a comment.
Winthrop-University Hospital, St. Francis Hospital and North Shore University Hospital at Manhasset all received three stars in at least two of seven major categories.
The report is not meant to be the final word on hospital treatment, but rather should be part of the information a patient should collect before deciding on where to seek medical treatment.
The complete results of the report are available at www.myHealthFinder.com.
Mercy Medical Center South Nassau Communities Hospital
Number of cases Deaths Risk-adjusted mortality rate Star Rating
Acute heart attacks 91 27 17.2% * 169 27 11.7% **
Congestive heart failure 330 30 8.2% * 618 39 5% **
Acute stroke 225 42 14.4% ** 299 38 14.1% **
Gastrointestinal hemorrhage 253 16 5.2% ** 285 11 2.9% **
Pneumonia 496 62 11.7% ** 625 109 15.2% *
Hip fracture 127 10 6.6% * 223 11 4.2% **
Hip replacement 85 0 0.1% ** 60 0 0.0% **
