How Good a Hospital is LICH ? --Part II

The New York Times of Friday, Sept. 7, published an important article by Sarah Kershaw about a new policy of openness on the part of New York City's own hospitals, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (NYCHHC). This policy affects city-owned hospitals, not private hospitals and nonprofits like LICH. The data to be made available concern infection and death rates, preventable blood stream infections and pneumonia cases, and other items. One of the new HHC web pages for this purpose gives data for heart attack care; data for other crucial categories are linked to this page.

Kershaw's article makes it clear that this is a new step by the city administration to provide data that are crucial to patients. The article also makes it clear that the rest of the industry, and this presumably includes LICH, has a long way to go to match this level of transparency.

Ladies and gentlemen of the LICH administration: follow the mayor on this !

Below please find data taken directly from the website of the HHC. It shows that in the crucial area of preventing surgical infections, the city hospitals do better than other hositals in the NYC area. Where does LICH stand here ? It would sure be good to know !

Note: the remainder of this posting is taken directly from the HHC site.

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The chance of surgical infection can be minimized if doctors adequately seal wounds, ensure completely sterile conditions and administer appropriate antibiotics in a timely fashion. The appropriate antibiotic should be given no more than one hour before surgery and should be stopped within 24 hours after surgery.

As reflected in data reported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the New York State Department of Health, many HHC hospitals have achieved some of the best results in the nation in this category of care.

Preventing Surgical Infections

Hospital-Specific Data

HHC Average= 85.1%
NYC Vicinity Average = 76%
National Average=74.5%