St. Joseph Named Among Top 50 U.S. Heart Hospitals

TOWSON, MD — The University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center was included on a list of top 50 cardiovascular hospitals in the United States by Watson Health.

The 2021 list is based on quality indicators and clinical outcomes for Medicare patients who received heart care in 2018 and 2019.

More than 7,000 lives could be saved and more than 5,000 heart patients could be complication free if all hospitals performed at the level of St. Joseph and the other top 50 award winners, the Watson Health study reported.

Compared with other hospitals, this year's 50 top cardiovascular hospitals winners demonstrated the following, according to Watson Health:

• Better survival rates
• Fewer patient complications
• Fewer health care-associated infections
• Lower 30-day mortality and readmission rates
• Shorter lengths of stay
• Lower inpatient expenses

Watson Health based its analysis on publicly available Medicare data from nearly 1,000 acute care, non-federal U.S. hospitals that treat a broad spectrum of cardiology patients.

It specifically looks at heart attacks (acute myocardial infarction), heart bypass surgery (coronary artery bypass graft), cardiac catheterization procedures (percutaneous coronary intervention) and heart failure cases in its analysis.

— By Tiffany Razzano