Thomson Reuters has released its annual list of the 100 Top cardiovascular hospitals. The firm analyzed outcomes for CABG and PCIs at hundreds of hospitals nationwide using Medicare data. The analysis produced 100 hospitals that outperformed their peers on risk-adjusted measures of mortality and complications.

Our National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) has better data than CMS. I believe it’s time for the ACC to make a name for itself in quality rankings. In an online discussion of this topic this week, ACC leaders suggested reaching out to U.S. News and World Report to work with us on a similar “top hospitals” ranking (of course with permission of the hospitals in question), as well as creating an annual report on trends and disparities similar to the Dartmouth Atlas.

The College is also developing an NCDR recognition program to launch in 2009. For the first time, we offered a "silver award" for ACTION (our acute coronary syndrome registry) sites this year and received tremendous enthusiasm from our eligible participants. The criteria for the award were based on target achievements related to clinical composite measures. 

*** Image from Flickr (alasam) ***