Health system responds to mortality rate report

VCU Health System’s high death rate of 19.3 percent for heart attack patients emerged last week in a report from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies.

The chief heart doctor, George W. Vetrovec, who spoke with BizSense on Friday, repeated in a video response posted on the VCU website that many of the patients who come to VCU are in poorer health. But he also said that VCU receives referrals from all over the region because it is the largest hospital, and those patients are in poorer health.

VCU Health System has a 19.3 percent mortality rate for heart attack patients, compared to the national average of 16.6 percent.

Dr. Ron Clark, the chief medical officer at VCU said that while the mortality rate was high, in the area of procedures and response time to heart attack victims, VCU is among the nation’s leaders.

View VCU’s video response here.

You can read about the report here.

Death rate high for heart attack victims at VCU

While it’s never a good time or place to have a heart attack, VCU Medical Center has the third highest death rates for heart attack victims in Virginia, which is three points above the national average.

A study by the government’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid did a survey of 4,200 hospitals nationwide. The study showed that VCU Medical Center had 19.8 percent death rate for people who are admitted with heart attacks, and a 19 percent readmission rate.

The death rate was just low enough to keep VCU off the list of top 100 highest death rates for Heart Attack. Danville Regional Medical Center had the fourth highest death rates in the nation for admitted heart attack victims at 23.3 percent.

The death rate is six percent higher than Bon Secours Saint Mary’s, and three percent higher than Henrico Doctors.

When it comes to heart failure, the death rate at VCU, 9.9 percent, is slightly lower than the other hospitals in the region such as CJW Medical Center has the highest death rate at 11.8 percent.

VCU Medical Center does provide care for the bulk of Richmond’s uninsured and low income population, by nature of its location downtown—which means those patients could be in a poorer state of health when they are admitted.

You can see all the statistics for hospitals nationwide on USA Today’s website.