A newly released state Department of Health (DOH) report showed Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan and Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center in New Hyde Park as having among the state’s best outcomes for certain types of open-heart surgery.
Based on the DOH’s statistical analysis of risk-adjusted outcomes for adult cardiac surgery in 2016, Lenox Hill was the only hospital in the state with a significantly higher success rate for isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), with no deaths in 2016—the average risk-adjusted mortality rate statewide was 1.67 percent.
The cardiovascular teams at LIJ Medical Center and North Shore University Hospital, both flagship hospitals within Northwell Health, combined their expertise in 2016 to form the highly specialized Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) in Manhasset. During the full three-year reporting period (2014-2016) analyzed by DOH, LIJ’s cardiothoracic team had among the state’s best survival rates for patients undergoing surgeries for isolated CABG, the repair or replacement of heart valves, and for those in need of surgeries for both valve and CABG surgery. LIJ was among four hospitals to earn the DOH’s prestigious double asterisk for outcomes that were significantly better than the statewide average—the eighth consecutive year that it has achieved superior performance.
S. Jacob Scheinerman, MD, led LIJ’s cardiothoracic surgery program from 2006 until becoming chair of cardiovascular and thoracic surgery at Lenox Hill in 2015.
The DOH report analyzed 62,744 total adult cardiac surgeries performed at 38 hospitals from 2014-2016. Five Northwell cardiothoracic programs—LIJ Medical Center, NSUH, Lenox Hill, South Side Hospital in Bay Shore and Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH)—performed 7,468 total cardiac surgeries. Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, a Northwell affiliate, performed 1,676 cardiac surgeries during the same time period.
From an individual standpoint, Northwell has four of the nine cardiothoracic surgeons statewide who had significantly better outcomes during the 2014-16 reporting period, including two from Southside Hospital: Robert Kalimi, MD and Harold Fernandez, MD, who joined Southside in 2015. Others achieving superior outcomes were Iosif Gulkarov, MD, who joined SIUH in 2017, and the late L. Michael Graver, MD, of LIJ and NSUH, who was killed in a plane crash in 2018.
“This is the eighth consecutive reporting period that the cardiothoracic surgery team now based at the Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital has been recognized by the state for superior outcomes—an amazing achievement,” said Alan Hartman, MD, senior vice president and executive director of cardiothoracic services at Northwell Health. “Also noteworthy is Lenox Hill Hospital’s continued emergence as an extraordinary cardiac surgery program, chaired by Dr. Jake Scheinerman, who laid the groundwork for the exceptional track record at LIJ.”
In a separate DOH report, Maimonides had significantly better success rates for percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI), a non-surgical procedure used to treat blockages within the heart’s coronary arteries. Maimonides was one of only four hospitals in the state with significantly better success rates for all types of coronary interventions, performing 3,433 procedures over three years. From an individual standpoint, Barry Kaplan, MD, an interventional cardiologist at the Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital, distinguished himself with significantly better outcomes for PCI.
The state report analyzed 146,568 PCI procedures, also known as angioplasty, at 62 hospitals over the three years covered in the report. Collectively, seven Northwell cardiology programs—NSUH, LIJ, Lenox Hill, Maimonides, SIUH, Southside and Huntington Hospital—performed 22,434 PCI procedures or about 15 percent of the statewide total, more than any other health system in New York State.
—Submitted by Northwell Health
