The Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix, Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento, Calif., and Banner Heart Hospital in Mesa, Ariz., won top honors in Truven Health Analytics’ 2013 report on the best providers of cardiovascular (CV) services. They emerged as leaders for teaching hospitals with CV residency programs, teaching hospitals without CV residency programs and community hospitals, respectively.

Truven, formerly the healthcare business arm of Thomson Reuters, said it based the quantitative study on an analysis of Medicare patients receiving care at more than 1,000 U.S. hospitals. The study included non-federal hospitals that treat cardiology patients for MI, heart failure, PCI or CABG.

Hospitals were evaluated on clinical outcome measures (risk-adjusted mortality and risk-adjusted complications); clinical process measures (core measures and the percentage of CABG patients with internal mammary artery use); extended outcome measures (30-day mortality and 30-day readmissions) and efficiency measures (severity-adjusted average length of stay and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost per case).

“Comparing the award winners to a peer group of hospitals, we found that if all cardiovascular providers performed at the level of this year's winners, nearly 8,600 additional lives could be saved [and] more than $1 billion could be saved,” according to Truven.

Analysts calculated that the top 50 hospitals:

• Spent about $3,500 less per bypass surgery patient and nearly $1,000 less per MI patient admitted;
• Had significantly better 30-day survival;
• Maintained lower 30-day readmission rates for MI and heart failure patients;
• Released bypass patients a full day sooner, and MI and heart failure patients about three-quarters of a day sooner than their peers; and
• Were more likely to follow recommended care protocol.

The 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals report was published Oct. 1. For an overview of the report and a list of the 50 winning hospitals, click here.