The Emory Cardiothoracic Surgery services located at Emory University Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown, and Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital have earned a distinguished three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) for patient care and outcomes in isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures. The three-star rating, which denotes the highest category of quality, places Emory among the elite for heart bypass surgery in the United States and Canada.
The STS star rating system is one of the most sophisticated and highly regarded overall measures of quality in health care, and is based on ranking the benchmarked outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery programs across the United States and Canada. The rating is calculated using a combination of quality measures for specific procedures performed by an STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database participant.
Historically, less than 10 percent of STS participant programs receive the three-star rating for isolated CABG surgery. This latest analysis of data for CABG surgery covers a one-year period, from July 2017 to June 2018, and recognizes approximately 60 out of 1100 community and academic heart hospitals and institutions.
"The Society of Thoracic Surgeons congratulates STS National Database participants who have received three-star ratings," said David M. Shahian, MD, Chair of the STS Council on Quality, Research, and Patient Safety. "Participation in the database and public reporting demonstrates a commitment to quality improvement in health care delivery and helps provide patients and their families with meaningful information to help them make informed decisions about health care."
The STS National Database was established in 1989 as an initiative for quality improvement and patient safety among cardiothoracic surgeons, and 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 6.5 million surgical records and gathers information from more than 3,700 participating physicians, including surgeons and anesthesiologists from more than 90 percent 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.
"All of our teams at the three hospitals contributed to making this achievement possible, particularly Iman Aziz, MBBCh, MBA, our clinical database and quality outcomes manager and the person who directs all of our quality efforts in cardiothoracic surgery," says Michael Halkos, MD, chief of the Emory Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery. "She made achieving this rating her primary goal for Emory CTS, and inspired all team members to accomplish it. This required a tremendous collaborative effort among our heart surgeons, advanced practice providers, nursing and OR teams, anesthesia and critical care teams, as well as other disciplines including neurology and respiratory therapy at all three CTS hospitals."
About STS
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) is a not-for-profit organization that represents more than 7,300 surgeons, researchers, and allied health care professionals worldwide who are dedicated to ensuring the best possible outcomes for surgeries of the heart, lung, and esophagus, as well as other surgical procedures within the chest. The Society's mission is to enhance the ability of cardiothoracic surgeons to provide the highest quality patient care through education, research, and advocacy.
