Baptist Health Paducah earned highest quality ranking in heart bypass surgery
Baptist Health Paducah. February 29, 2024
(PADUCAH, KY) Feb. 29, 2024 - For the third consecutive year, Baptist Health Paducah has earned a distinguished three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) for its patient care and outcomes in isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures. The three-star rating, which denotes the highest category of quality, places Baptist Health Paducah among the elite for heart bypass surgery in the United States and Canada.
“At Baptist Health Paducah, we are committed to provide advancements in cardiovascular surgery, such as complex CABG, robotic assistant CABG and valve replacement,” said Craig Beavers, Baptist Health Paducah Vice President of Operations. “However, we are also committed to maintaining top quality and being transparent with the quality as outlined in our 3-start status the last 3 cycles.”
The STS star rating system is one of the most sophisticated and highly regarded overall measures of quality in health care, rating the benchmarked outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery programs across the United States and Canada. The star rating is calculated using a combination of quality measures for specific procedures performed by an STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database participant.
Approximately 20% of participants receive the three-star rating for isolated CABG surgery. The latest analysis of data for CABG surgery covers a 3-year period, from July 2020 to June 2023, and includes 982 participants.
“STS believes that the public has a right to see and better understand surgical outcomes,” said David M. Shahian, MD, chair of the Task Force on Quality Measurement. “Public reporting is an ethical responsibility of health care providers, and we take this very seriously in cardiothoracic surgery. Transparency of outcomes focuses the quality improvement activities of our participating programs and provides invaluable information for patients as they choose their health care providers.”
Continuing the mission of providing the most advanced and innovative procedures for our community, Baptist Health Paducah successfully performed its first robotic-assisted heart bypass surgery using the Da Vinci Xi on Feb. 2. The minimally invasive procedure allows the surgeon to work through three small keyhole-sized incisions using tiny, precision-guided instruments compared to a traditional, open-heart surgery that requires a large incision across the chest. Patients undergoing this bypass should experience an easier and quicker recovery.
The STS National Database was established in 1989 as an initiative for quality improvement and patient safety among cardiothoracic surgeons. The Database includes four components: the Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD), the Congenital Heart Surgery Database (CHSD), the General Thoracic Surgery Database (GTSD), and the mechanical circulatory support database (Intermacs). The STS ACSD houses approximately 6.9 million surgical records and gathers information from more than 3,800 participating physicians, including surgeons and anesthesiologists from more than 90% of groups that perform heart surgery in the US. STS public reporting online enables STS ACSD participants to voluntarily report to each other and the public their heart surgery scores and star ratings.
Baptist Health Paducah has long been known as a leader in heart care since performing the region’s first open-heart surgery in 1985. The tradition continues, becoming the first and only hospital in the region to earn HeartCARE Center National Distinction of Excellence, the highest honor from the American College of Cardiology. The Structural heart team at Baptist Health Paducah performs innovative procedures including the minimally invasive valve replacement procedure (TAVR), WATCHMAN FLX™ and MitraClip™.
For more information on the heart care at Baptist Health Paducah, visit Heart Care - Baptist Health.
“At Baptist Health Paducah, we are committed to provide advancements in cardiovascular surgery, such as complex CABG, robotic assistant CABG and valve replacement,” said Craig Beavers, Baptist Health Paducah Vice President of Operations. “However, we are also committed to maintaining top quality and being transparent with the quality as outlined in our 3-start status the last 3 cycles.”
The STS star rating system is one of the most sophisticated and highly regarded overall measures of quality in health care, rating the benchmarked outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery programs across the United States and Canada. The star rating is calculated using a combination of quality measures for specific procedures performed by an STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database participant.
Approximately 20% of participants receive the three-star rating for isolated CABG surgery. The latest analysis of data for CABG surgery covers a 3-year period, from July 2020 to June 2023, and includes 982 participants.
“STS believes that the public has a right to see and better understand surgical outcomes,” said David M. Shahian, MD, chair of the Task Force on Quality Measurement. “Public reporting is an ethical responsibility of health care providers, and we take this very seriously in cardiothoracic surgery. Transparency of outcomes focuses the quality improvement activities of our participating programs and provides invaluable information for patients as they choose their health care providers.”
Continuing the mission of providing the most advanced and innovative procedures for our community, Baptist Health Paducah successfully performed its first robotic-assisted heart bypass surgery using the Da Vinci Xi on Feb. 2. The minimally invasive procedure allows the surgeon to work through three small keyhole-sized incisions using tiny, precision-guided instruments compared to a traditional, open-heart surgery that requires a large incision across the chest. Patients undergoing this bypass should experience an easier and quicker recovery.
The STS National Database was established in 1989 as an initiative for quality improvement and patient safety among cardiothoracic surgeons. The Database includes four components: the Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD), the Congenital Heart Surgery Database (CHSD), the General Thoracic Surgery Database (GTSD), and the mechanical circulatory support database (Intermacs). The STS ACSD houses approximately 6.9 million surgical records and gathers information from more than 3,800 participating physicians, including surgeons and anesthesiologists from more than 90% of groups that perform heart surgery in the US. STS public reporting online enables STS ACSD participants to voluntarily report to each other and the public their heart surgery scores and star ratings.
Baptist Health Paducah has long been known as a leader in heart care since performing the region’s first open-heart surgery in 1985. The tradition continues, becoming the first and only hospital in the region to earn HeartCARE Center National Distinction of Excellence, the highest honor from the American College of Cardiology. The Structural heart team at Baptist Health Paducah performs innovative procedures including the minimally invasive valve replacement procedure (TAVR), WATCHMAN FLX™ and MitraClip™.
For more information on the heart care at Baptist Health Paducah, visit Heart Care - Baptist Health.