Administrative Memos

200003

FROM: Theodore O. Will, Chief Executive Officer
DATE: Jul 13, 2000
SUBJECT: Medicare National Acute Myocardial Infarction Project
IPRO CONTACTS:

Marguerite Shaffer, R.N., Downstate Director, Improvement Strategies/QI - Ext. 356
Barbara Shields, R.N., Upstate Director, Improvement Strategies/QI (1-800-233-0360)

Enclosed please find a baseline report on the National Acute Myocardial Infarction project. This quality improvement project is focused on improving the treatment of Medicare patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). It is a continuation of the Cooperative Cardiovascular Project (CCP) and the Aspirin, Beta Blocker and Clot Busters project (ABC), both of which showed that, although substantial improvements in AMI care have been achieved between 1994 and 1998, considerable room for improvement remains. This project includes all acute care hospitals in New York with Medicare AMI discharges. IPRO has already provided a comprehensive cardiac toolkit to each hospital, and two cycles of cardiac teleconferences to support this project.

Please also find enclosed a report on your own hospitals patients with comparisons to a "best practice" hospital and the statewide average. IPRO abstracted data on additional patients for the 50 largest AMI providers in the state and plans visits to large volume hospitals in the next few months to review AMI processes of care. An ongoing round of data abstraction for mid- size and smaller providers will be completed and sent by September 2000. When there are very small numbers of cases in the hospital specific reports, rates need to be interpreted with caution. Hospitals may request their patient list and IPRO findings for patients in this report.

HCFA will begin remeasurement of the project indicators abstracting charts from July through December 2000. We recommend that you alert your staff and that concurrent review of these indicators is carried out during this timeframe.

Should you have any questions about the National Acute Myocardial Infarction project, please feel free to call one of the above listed contacts.