Mumbai heart hospital ranked safest in world

Mumbai: Mumbai`s renowned Asian Heart Institute (AHI) has been ranked by an international organisation the "safest cardiac hospital in the world" with the lowest mortality rate, a hospital official said Friday.

AHI`s vice chairman and managing director Ramakant Panda said the hospital was accorded the honour among 15 hospitals in eight countries that participated in the International Cardiac Benchmarking survey conducted by the Joint Commission International (JCI). "This included data analysis of more than 6000 cardiac surgeries between October 2009-March 2011," said Panda. The 15 JCI accredited hospitals had to provide data captured on a daily basis on the surgeries conducted and reported, set parameters to measure the quality of care provided and cooperate with verification visits by principals, said Panda, who performed heart surgery on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh nearly three years ago. "After the detailed three-year study, AHI has ranked No.1 in terms of `lowest complication rates` and `highest survival rates` as per the JCI survey," he said. Panda said AHI performed the maximum number of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), or bypass surgeries among all the surgeries performed in the 15 hospitals surveyed. AHI also ranked higher in terms of repeat bypass surgeries compared to the ICSB benchmarks and more valve surgeries on women by the same comparison, he said. AHI also led in terms of number of aortic valve replacements, valvle surgeries on patients who had previous cardiac surgery, CABG plus valve surgeries on patients in the plus-65 age group, with the lowest complication rates. Even the number of patients requiring blood transfusion was much lesser and mortality rates much lower than the benchmarks. Panda said that AHI has consistently ranked lower on mortality rate than the United States Society of Thoracic Surgeons average of 2.7. "Our mortality rates, including non-cardiac deaths has been 0.4 percent for the last nine years over 1,500 surgeries per annum on patients from 38 countries," he said. IANS