Oct 25, 2017 3 min read

Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council today released its 2016 Hospital Performance Report, which evaluates hospitals statewide on the outcomes of 16 medical conditions and surgical procedures. Information was supplied by hospitals categorized as general acute care or specialty general acute care.

Donna Ramusivich liked what she saw about her facility, Monongahela Valley Hospital.

“This is one other mechanism besides awards and recognitions that says, ‘Yes we are doing our job for patients on an ongoing basis,'” said the senior vice president for compliance at the Carroll Township center. “We’ve gotten awards or recognitions in five areas. It’s nice to have an outside agency corroborate what we know we are doing internally.”

Mon Valley got no negative rankings in the latest annual report by PHC4, an independent agency that collects, analyzes and reports information that can assist in planning for better health care that is less expensive. The intent of the study, according to the Harrisburg-based agency, is “to help fill the information vacuum and assist consumers and purchasers in making more informed health-care decisions.”

“We use this report as sort of a barometer every year to see how we are doing compared with our peer hospitals,” Ramusivich said.

The study was conducted from October 2015 through September 2016, and focused solely on adult inpatients (18 and older) who were eventually discharged.

Statistics were provided for Mon Valley and this region’s other three hospitals: Washington Health System’s Washington Hospital and WHS-Greene, and Canonsburg Hospital.

Statewide, according to the report, in-hospital mortality rates dropped significantly from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2016 in 12 of 15 conditions reported. The biggest decline was in sepsis, from 15.4 percent in 2011 to 8.8 percent. None of the three remaining conditions increased a marked amount.

The study was broken down into three geographic regions: Western Pennsylvania; central and northeastern; and southeastern. Western, with 59 hospitals in 28 counties, had in-hospital mortality rates that, according to the study, were significantly higher than anticipated for six medical circumstances: heart attack/medical management; heart failure; pneumonia-infectious; respiratory failure; sepsis; and stroke.

Washington Hospital did experience high mortality rates in two categories, the study said: in abnormal heartbeat and sepsis. The facility was eighth in the state with 638 sepsis cases.

WHS officials could not be reached for comment.

Readmission has become a prominent health-care issue, but facilities statewide showed a significant decrease in 30-day readmissions – from 21.4 percent in 2011 to 17.9 percent in 2016. WHS’s Greene hospital fell into that category in readmissions for heart failure, although it experienced a significantly higher mortality rate for that condition, the report showed.

Canonsburg got a lower-than-expected readmission rate for pneumonia-aspiration, the study said, but a higher-than-expected mark for respiratory failure readmissions.

But Dr. Sam Reynolds, chief quality officer for Allegheny Health Network, the parent of Canonsburg Hospital, said that second rate barely fell into the “significantly higher” category. He said the number of respiratory failure cases was small – 45 – which can affect results.

“Canonsburg has been one of our shining star hospitals,” he said. “We know there have been improvements in general there.”