Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital West has earned a distinguished three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) for its patient care and outcomes in aortic valve replacement (AVR) combined with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), and in isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures. The three-star rating, which denotes the highest category of quality, places Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital West among the elite for AVR+CABG surgery and heart bypass surgery in the United States and Canada.
The STS star rating system is one of the most sophisticated and highly regarded overall measures of quality in health care, rating the benchmarked outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery programs in the United States and Canada. The star rating is calculated using a combination of quality measures for specific procedures performed by an STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database participant.
Historically, approximately 4%–7% of participants receive the three-star rating for AVR+CABG surgery and 20% for isolated CABG surgery. The latest analysis of data for AVR+CABG surgery and isolated CABG surgery covers a 3-year period, from July 2020 to June 2023, and includes 982 cardiac surgery programs analyzed.
“The Society of Thoracic Surgeons congratulates STS National Database participants who have received three-star ratings,” said David M. Shahian, MD, chair of the Task Force on Quality Measurement. “Participation in the Database and public reporting demonstrates a commitment to quality improvement in health care delivery and provides patients and their families with meaningful information to help them make informed decisions about health care.”
The STS National Database was established in 1989 as an initiative for quality improvement and patient safety among cardiothoracic surgeons. The Database includes four components: the Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD), the Congenital Heart Surgery Database (CHSD), the General Thoracic Surgery Database (GTSD), and the mechanical circulatory support database (Intermacs). The STS ACSD houses approximately 6.9 million surgical records and gathers information from more than 3,800 participating physicians, including surgeons and anesthesiologists from more than 90% of hospitals that perform heart surgery in the US. STS public reporting online enables STS ACSD participants to voluntarily report to each other and the public their heart surgery scores and star ratings.
About Ascension Saint Thomas
Ascension Saint Thomas is a leading health care system with a 125-year history of providing care to the community, and is the only faith-based, non profit health system in Middle Tennessee. Today, the health system offers a highly comprehensive system of care, with more than 250 sites of care that cover a 45-county area in Tennessee consisting of 13 hospitals and a network of affiliated joint ventures, medical practices, clinics and specialty facilities. Across the state, Ascension Saint Thomas and its partner organizations employ more than 10,700 dedicated associates who care for millions of patients each year. Ascension Saint Thomas is part of Ascension, one of the nation’s largest faith-based healthcare organizations committed to delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable. Ascension includes approximately 134,000 associates, 35,000 affiliated providers and 140 hospitals, serving communities in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
About STS
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) is a not-for-profit organization that represents more than 7,300 surgeons, researchers, and allied health care professionals worldwide who are dedicated to ensuring the best possible outcomes for surgeries of the heart, lung, and esophagus, as well as other surgical procedures within the chest. The Society’s mission is to enhance the ability of cardiothoracic surgeons to provide the highest quality patient care through education, research, and advocacy.
