Highest safety rating awarded to cardiac catheterization laboratory
The Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory of Mount Sinai Heart at The Mount Sinai Hospital has once again received the highest "two-star" safety rating from the New York State Department of Health for its percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) overall and in non-emergency cases. This marks the 17th consecutive year the Mount Sinai Catheterization Laboratory or its physicians have been awarded a prestigious two-star designation for safety rates significantly exceeding the statewide average.
"At Mount Sinai Heart's Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory our patients' safety is our number one concern," says leading interventional cardiologist Samin Sharma, MD, Director of Clinical and Interventional Cardiology at The Mount Sinai Hospital. "We have a 17 year long track-record of offering the highest level of patient safety in New York State, and this record highlights the very best of cardiac care excellence here at Mount Sinai."
The new data released by the New York State Department of Health reports on the outcomes of patients discharges at all 60 statewide cardiac catheterization labs from 2010-2012. The "Percutaneous Coronary Interventions (PCI) in New York State 2010-2012 report tracked PCI data in overall, non-emergency, and emergency cases.
During this three-year period results show Mount Sinai's Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory excels achieving a significantly higher safety level than the statewide average even while performing the highest number of PCI procedures in New York (14,168). Mount Sinai's risk-adjusted mortality rate, or RAMR, for all cases (0.59 percent) was significantly lower than the statewide average (.93 percent). Also, mortality rates for non-emergency cases (0.38 percent) was significantly lower than the statewide average (.59 percent).
Mount Sinai was the only one of 10 New York State hospitals to have an overall RAMR significantly lower than the statewide rate in two categories, and one of only two hospitals to have a significantly lower RAMR for non-emergency cases.
"This report measures the high-quality patient care and successful results our team of skilled interventional cardiologists and staff have been able to offer our patients each and every day at the Mount Sinai Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory," says Annapoorna Kini, MD, Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
Additionally, New York State data highlights Dr. Kini's and Dr. Sharma's performance as two of only three interventional cardiologists in New York State to be awarded the highest two-star safety rating for their significantly lower overall mortality rates, while performing a total of 6,926 PCI cases.
"I could not be any prouder of Dr. Sharma, Dr. Kini, and our Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory team. They are true leaders in the field of interventional cardiology," says Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital. "Patient safety and effectiveness continue to drive this team of highly skilled cardiologists to ever greater levels of quality every year."
PCI, also known as angioplasty, is a minimally invasive procedure performed inside a catheterization laboratory. It is used to diagnose and treat patients with heart disease or blocked heart arteries. A thin catheter is threaded through the body, typically from an artery in the groin to a blocked vessel in the heart. A diagnosed blockage can be removed, often with a stent that is inserted to restore blood flow to the heart within the blood vessel. The condition of patients entering a cardiac catheterization laboratory can range from non-emergency cases of patients experiencing early heart disease symptoms up to emergency cases with patients suffering a myocardial infarction or heart attack.
