RICHMOND, Va., March 19, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On any given day, hundreds of Virginians are hospitalized for heart disease—a leading cause of death. Having information on how experienced hospitals are at treating these conditions and how well the patients recover are important measures of health care quality. This and other information will help you speak with your doctor about your care and choose the hospital that is best for you. So where do consumers find out how hospitals in their area stack up?
Virginia Health Information (VHI) is Virginia's independent nonprofit health information organization. For more than a decade, VHI has published new information on cardiac care at www.vhi.org/cardiac. Our 2015 report is easy to read and allows consumers to compare hospitals on how often they provide different types of care and their 30-day hospital readmission rates and mortality rates.
As you can see below, not all hospitals provide the same services for persons with heart disease:
Type of Cardiac Care |
# Hospitals Treating* |
Range of Discharges by Hospital |
Medical Cardiology: Non-surgical therapy for heart disease such as angina, congestive heart failure and heart attacks |
79 |
45 to 2,540 |
Invasive Cardiology: Surgeries including cardiac catheterization, cardiac pacemaker insertion, balloon angioplasty and placement of cardiac stents |
45 |
38 to 1,827 |
Open Heart Surgery: Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery and cardiac valve operations |
21 |
48 to 961 |
*Ratings are provided if a hospital has at least 30 discharges reported annually |
"There is much good news about the heart care Virginia hospitals provide!", says Michael T. Lundberg, VHI's Executive Director. "The number of people requiring hospital care continues to drop. Overall mortality rates and readmission rates have also decreased over the past five years." Still, both readmission and mortality rates vary by hospital. Be sure to check out the ratings to help you talk to your doctor if you need non- emergency care for heart conditions or disease.
Want other reliable information on heart disease? VHI's cardiac care web pages include tips for heart disease prevention, heart attack warning signs, preventing readmissions and physicians that care for patients with heart disease. Statewide summary reports compare cardiac care outcomes by age, race and insurance type.
Virginia Health Information (VHI) is Virginia's Consumer Health Information Portal; the nonprofit organization that, consumers, employers and health insurance companies come to for health information. For those without Internet access call 1-877-VHI-INFO to receive information by mail. VHI publishes reports and consumer guides on health insurance, hospitals, HMOs, nursing facilities, physicians and other topics at www.vhi.org.
Press Contact: Virginia Health Information
Michael T. Lundberg, Executive Director
Phone: 804-644-7026 or Toll Free: 1-877-VHI-INFO
Web Site: www.vhi.org
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SOURCE Virginia Health Information
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