Clinical Outcomes

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Outcomes at the Heart Institute at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center rival those of leading heart centers across the country. Measuring mortality, reoperations, infections and patient satisfaction gives patients a window into a heart program’s quality.

ARMC is ranked seventh in the country -- out of nearly 3,600 hospitals -- for providing quality care for heart attack, congestive heart failure and pneumonia*. This is based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid hospital quality data compiled by Harvard University for The Commonwealth Fund (April 2004-March 2005).

The state’s eighth cardiac surgery report, released this year, showed ARMC had the lowest mortality rate among hospitals in southern New Jersey that perform coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. ARMC’s risk-adjusted mortality rate was 0.75 percent. The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services applied a methodology that estimates risk-adjusted mortality rates to allow for fair comparisons among hospitals. This adjusted rate gives “extra credit” to hospitals and surgeons with sicker patient populations. The report includes performance data for 17 hospitals performing cardiac surgery in 2003 and on 52 individual cardiac surgeons who performed at least 100 bypass operations in one hospital in 2002-2003. James Dralle, MD, chief of Cardiac Surgery at the Heart Institute, was among top New Jersey physicians with the lowest surgical mortality rate.

Based on the report, The Press of Atlantic City recently featured a story about safer heart surgery that includes mention of ARMC's outstanding surgery outcomes and portions of an interview with Dr. James Dralle, chief of Cardiac Surgery at the Heart Institute. According to Dralle, who performed the majority of the cardiac surgery procedures in 2001-02, it is important to have patients properly prepared for surgery, and to provide extensive post surgical care. Dralle and his team work closely with the patients' regular doctors, who would be more inclined to notice small changes in their patients' everyday health patterns.

The Heart Institute’s 2003 Cardiac Surgery Statistics

View the full report from the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services: Cardiac Surgery in New Jersey 2002: A Consumer Report

View The Press of Atlantic City ’s June 23, 2005 article on heart surgery outcomes in New Jersey: Heart surgery getting safer, especially in region

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