Hospital Compare site adds PCI readmissions data

Data revealing how many patients are readmitted within 30 days of undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI, are now publicly available through Medicare's Hospital Compare website.

Developed through a partnership with Yale New Haven Health Services Corp.-Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation and the CMS, and using information from the American College of Cardiology's National Cardiovascular Data Registry, the site's newest measure compares hospitals by showing how often patients were readmitted within a month following a PCI procedure.

PCI, commonly known as stenting and angioplasty, is used to open narrowed or blocked arteries. Though it is one of the most common cardiac procedures—more than 600,000 are performed annually in the U.S.—studies have suggested that as many as 1 in 7 PCI patients are readmitted to a hospital within 30 days after the procedure.

“This measure is extremely valuable for patients in that they are, for the first time, getting easy access to information on how their local hospital is performing in terms of readmissions after these procedures,” Dr. John Harold, president of the American College of Cardiology, said in a release.

The measure assigns hospitals to one of three categories, demonstrating whether it performs better than, worse than, or no different than the NCDR CathPCI Registry readmission rate of 11.9% over a period from Jan. 1, 2010, to Nov. 30, 2011. Public reporting of this information is currently voluntary, though more than 300 hospitals have chosen to participate.

“Participating in this registry and in public reporting of readmissions data shows a significant commitment on the part of the hospitals to transparency and quality,” Dr. Gregory Dehmer, chair of the American College of Cardiology's Public Reporting Advisory Group, said in the release.

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