Web sites compare facilities’ performances

Consumers can see how their hospitals perform on the care of patients with heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and pregnancy on a new Web-based tool.

The tool also compares nursing homes, labs and other types of health-care businesses. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations tool can be found at www.qualitycheck.org.

But don’t expect too much from this tool yet. For example, there are no Spokane nursing homes listed for comparison. You’ll get more on nursing homes from a similar comparison tool on the Medicare Web site ( www.medicare.gov).

In some cases, the Joint Commission tool just tells you how well an organization filled out the paperwork. Sacred Heart Medical Center, Spokane’s largest hospital, found that out the hard way.

Heart attack patients are supposed to receive beta blockers at their arrival at the hospital and that’s one of the standards JCAHO uses to evaluate a hospital’s care.

But since Sacred Heart receives a significant number of heart attack patients as transfers from other hospitals, and since the hospital didn’t mark some of its heart attack patients who came from other hospitals as “transfer patients,” and since the hospital documented that they had not received beta blockers at Sacred Heart, the hospital ended up with a “minus” grade for caring for heart attack victims.

“There are many different Web sites available to help consumers in choosing a physician and hospital,” said Denise Dominik, director of performance improvement at Sacred Heart. “I believe each has value but does not tell the entire picture of quality health care.”

Sacred Heart is participating in a federal demonstration project that eventually will generate a Web-based hospital report card for consumers. Dominik says the federal project will include patient satisfaction data, in addition to quality ratings.

Competitor Deaconess Medical Center scored better than Sacred Heart for heart attack care, receiving a “plus” rating. Marietta Haffey, manager of performance improvement for Empire Health Services, which operates Deaconess, is pleased.

“The Joint Commission has been very clear on the data that are collected. It’s the responsibility of the hospital to make sure that’s done adequately,” she said. “This wasn’t a surprise to us.”

Prof honored

A Washington State University Spokane pharmacy professor recently was recognized nationally for his work with Alzheimer’s disease.

Stephen Setter, assistant pharmacotherapy professor at WSU Spokane, is one of four pharmacists recognized by the journal, U.S. Pharmacist. He will write a two-page article for that publication.

Wired and wireless

Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d’Alene made two “best” lists in a recent issue of Hospital and Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital Association. The hospital was named among the nation’s “100 Most Wired” health-care organizations. It also was named one of the nation’s 25 “Most Wireless” hospitals.

Five Spokane hospitals also were named to the “most wired” list: Deaconess Medical Center, Holy Family Hospital, Sacred Heart Medical Center, St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute and Valley Hospital and Medical Center.

Robotic surgery

An alternative to open-heart surgery for heart bypass will be more widely available in Spokane.

The Heart Institute of Spokane and Sacred Heart Medical Center recently received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use the hospital’s robotic surgery system to perform closed-chest heart bypass procedures.

The robotic surgery takes longer than open-heart surgery and requires more anesthesia, but recovery is quicker.

During a robotic surgery, doctor and patient are in the same operating room. The doctor sits at a 600-pound console, operating robotic surgical tools with hand controls. The doctor views the work, magnified 10 times, on the console’s video screen.

Across the room, robotic scissors, scalpels and forceps respond in real time to the doctor’s finger and wrist movements. The tools and a stereoscopic camera are threaded into the patient’s chest through half-inch incisions.

The FDA clearance follows a clinical trial of the robotic surgical system for heart bypass. Spokane was one of the sites for the research with Dr. Leland Siwek, leading the local arm of the trial.