Report says open-heart surgery is getting safer
HARRISBURG — The most common type of open-heart surgery in Pennsylvania has become safer over the years, despite the increasingly sick patients who are being operated on, a state agency reported Thursday.
The report, released by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, also noted that newer, non-invasive procedures, such as inserting a wire-mesh stent into an artery, are allowing more patients to avoid the more serious coronary artery bypass graft.
Despite the increasingly poor condition of patients, Pennsylvania hospitals reported that mortality rates for people who underwent a coronary artery bypass graft in 2004 dropped to its lowest level in the 14 years since the council began tracking the statistic.
Coronary artery bypass grafts are the most commonly performed open-heart surgery in Pennsylvania. It involves cutting open a person's sternum and taking blood vessels from their legs or chest walls to graft onto blocked arteries that carry blood to the heart.
All told, 60 Pennsylvania hospitals performed 13,359 coronary artery bypass grafts in 2004.
Butler Memorial Hospital performed 170 coronary artery bypass grafts in 2004, with two doctors performing the majority of them. Dr. George Davliakos performed 83 and Dr. Hazem El-Khatib performed 66.
For all Pennsylvania patients, 1.98 percent died in the hospital, down from 2.04 percent in 2003 and 3.9 percent in 1990, the council said. Meanwhile, 2.31 percent died within 30 days in 2004, the lowest rate since the council began tracking that statistic in 2000.
Doctors in Pennsylvania performed 24 percent fewer of the surgeries in 2004 than they did in 2000, even as they performed more angioplasty procedures and more coronary artery bypass grafts in conjunction with surgeries to repair or replace a heart valve.
Readmission rates also dropped slightly, with most due to infection. About 2.6 percent of the heart patients, or 341 total, were reported as having contracted an infection while in the hospital, although the council said its data suggests that hospitals underreported infections in 2004.
