UTMC named one of nation’s 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals

October 16, 2012 | News, UToday
By Jon Strunk



The University of Toledo Medical Center was named one of the nation’s 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals by Truven Health Analytics.

The only northwest Ohio hospital honored, UTMC joins institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and the University of California San Diego Medical Center for the 14th annual survey, which was first published by Modern Healthcare.

“This wonderful honor is a tribute to the physicians, nurses and clinicians who work every day to ensure UTMC remains on the leading edge of heart and cardiovascular treatment,” said Dr. Jeffrey P. Gold, chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs, and dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences.

“If you review the list of the Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospitals, you quickly see there are entire states and regions of the country where patients don’t have access to one of the top 50 cardiovascular care hospitals,” Gold said. “Those living in northwest Ohio can be proud that at UTMC, our region’s patients get the most advanced heart and cardiovascular care available.”

In its study, Truven Health Analytics used data from 2010, 2011 and 2012 from a variety of Medicare and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid data sets and identified the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals as having:

• Better risk-adjusted survival rates;

• Fewer complications;

• Fewer patients readmitted to the hospital within 30 days;

• Shorter hospital stays; and

• Lower costs.

“Patients have for a number of years increasingly looked to the UT Medical Center when it comes to heart and cardiovascular care,” said Norma Tomlinson, acting executive director of UTMC. “As an academic medical center, it is our obligation and our responsibility to ensure we are setting the bar for health care in this community, and we are proud to carry out that effort every day.”

Tomlinson pointed out that UTMC is the only hospital in northwest Ohio implanting left ventricular assist devices for those with congestive heart failure and has one of the fastest door-to-balloon times for patients arriving at UTMC during a heart attack. The latter metric measures how fast hospitals are able to reopen a blocked artery to restore blood flow.

In 2009, UTMC opened its Heart and Vascular Center, serving as the community’s first integrated location for patient care, education and translational research in cardiac and vascular diseases.

Since that time, UTMC researchers, physicians and patients have led and participated in numerous studies and clinical trials to advance cardiovascular care.

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