Franciscan Health Crown Point 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 Franciscan Health Crown Point among the elite for open heart surgery in the United States and Canada.
Franciscan Health Crown Point cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon J. Michael Tuchek, DO, FACS, calls the STS designation the “crown jewel of rating systems” due to the rigor of the process, which includes 23 pages of data filled out for each patient, tracking their progress both pre- and post-op.
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.
Dr. Tuchek said only 10 to 15 percent of hospitals in the U.S. receive the three-star rating for open heart surgery each year, and Franciscan Health Crown Point is the only three-star program in northern Indiana. The rating is based on an analysis of data for CABG surgery covering a three-year period through June 2021.
While the average length of hospital stay for open heart surgery patients is six to eight days, Franciscan Health Crown Point patients are down to a median of four days, with 46% going home in just three days, according to Dr. Tuchek. These results are just one part of the numerous quality outcomes measured in the STS rating system.
“The Society of Thoracic Surgeons congratulates STS National Database participants who have received three-star ratings,” said David M. Shahian, MD, chair of the Task Force on Quality Measurement. “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.”
On the success of the Franciscan Health Crown Point heart program, cardiothoracic surgeon Jason Fitzgerald, MD, says, “It really does take a village,” and credits numerous providers including the surgeons and their staff, OR and anesthesia staff, ICU and ancillary healthcare personnel. “There are also family practitioners and cardiologists who make referrals and take care of patients before and after, along with other specialists including pulmonologists and renal doctors, to name a few. All provide additional support to the heart surgery team, creating a truly multidisciplinary team approach to heart care here,” he added.
Dr. Fitzgerald points out, “Despite these extremely trying times, with COVID becoming such a major focus, we managed to work through that and improve the quality outcomes anyway. That’s truly no small feat.”
Franciscan Health Crown Point President and CEO Daniel McCormick, MD, praised the leadership shown by the surgeons. “Together, Dr. Tuchek and Dr. Fitzgerald have grown and shaped the program, which now include robotic lung surgery, helping patients recover much faster.”
Dr. Tuchek, who is a professor of cardiac surgery at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, says the three-star rating shows that local residents can find the highest quality heart care without having to travel to another state. “Having grown up here, this was really important to me, personally. You can come right here to a top-rated cardiac program, providing university-level care in a community setting.”
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 U.S. STS public reporting online enables STS ACSD participants to voluntarily report to each other and the public their heart surgery scores and star ratings.
