Download 2013 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Award

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) has awarded a three-star rating to
Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute
A national professional organization has awarded its highest rating to the Central
Maine Heart and Vascular Institute’s cardiac surgery program.
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) has awarded a three-star rating to CMHVI
for the quality of its heart surgery program for 2013. The STS comprehensive rating
system compares the quality of cardiac surgery among hospitals nationwide.
“Only 10 to 15 percent of all hospitals that perform open heart surgery receive the
three star rating, which denotes the highest category of quality” said Carmine
Frumiento, M.D., a cardiothoracic surgeon at CMHVI.
In a recent analysis of national data covering the 2012-2013 period, CMHVI’s
cardiac surgery performance was in the highest quality tier, earning the Lewistonbased program the STS three-star rating.
"This top ranking designation demonstrates that patients who undergo cardiac
surgery at CMHVI receive outstanding clinical care by a dedicated team of
professionals in the caring environment of our single stay unit,” said CMHVI
Executive Director Susan Horton.
The STS comprehensive rating system allows for nationwide comparisons of cardiac
surgery quality among some 750 hospitals. The system considers many categories
of cardiac surgery data on an annual basis. The data in the STS analysis includes
avoidance of mortality, avoidance of major complications, use of arteries as bypass
grafts, and the administration of all appropriate pre- and post-operative
medications.
The STS developed a national database in 1989 as part of an effort to improve
quality and patient safety in cardiothoracic surgery. The STS database focuses on
three cardiothoracic surgery subspecialties: adult cardiac, general thoracic, and
congenital heart surgery. The STS has developed 11 measures of quality divided into
four broad categories or domains. These individual measures and the overall
composite measure methodology used by STS are endorsed by the National Quality
Forum and have received careful scrutiny by national quality measure experts.
“This top ranking reflects the commitment of the surgeons and the cardiovascular
support team involved in the care of our patients to provide the highest level of
excellence to the surgical patients,” said Paul Weldner, M.D., a cardiac valvular heart
surgeon at CMHVI.
The STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database is the largest registry of its kind in the
world. It includes some 4.5 million cardiothoracic surgical records from 1,100
surgical groups in the United States.