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Texas hospital defends heart mortality rates

Quality Improvement Monitor, July 13, 2007

Baylor Health Care System this week defended its All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, saying one additional death forced it to miss being grouped with those hospitals considered to have a normal mortality rate for heart attack patients, according to the Dallas Morning News.

When CMS publicly posted its mortality rates last month, All Saints was dubbed one of the nation's worst based on deaths of patients within 30 days of their heart attack treatment.

Baylor's in-hospital mortality rate for heart attack patients is 21% lower than the national average, Paul Convery, MD, the health system's senior vice president and chief medical officer, told the paper.

But the CMS 30-day mortality data showed that Baylor's All Saints missed the national average - between 11% and 18% - by one death, Convery said. Hospitals are also virtually powerless once the patient goes home, he added.

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