Email this page- Choose Us
- Commitment to Quality
- Quality Measures
- Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (PTCA)
- Overview
- Number of PTCA procedures performed annually
- Number of interventional cardiologists exceeding guidelines for individual physician volume for PTCA
- Board certification of interventional cardiologists
- Average length of stay for PTCA
- Data bank reporting of PTCA
- Inpatient mortality rate for PTCA
- Advanced techniques: Use of drug-eluting stents
- Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (PTCA)
- Glossary of Terms
Quality Measures for Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (PTCA)
Percutanerous transluminal coronary angioplasty, also called PTCA or, simply, angioplasty, is a procedure that widens a narrowed heart artery to improve blood flow. At Strong Memorial Hospital, PTCA is one technique physicians use to treat heart disease. Specialists who perform angioplasty are called interventional cardiologists.
Angioplasty is one heart-care indicator often used in hospital “report cards” to compare hospital quality. The risk for patients undergoing angioplasty can vary, depending on how ill they are.
In a University of Rochester study published in 2005, nearly 80% of interventional cardiologists in New York State said they avoided performing a risky but potentially life-saving angioplasty on a patient, out of fear that if the patient dies it could skew their personal mortality “report card.” The anonymous poll was designed to measure whether the State Department of Health’s system of tracking doctors' cardiac death rates has an impact on how doctors make treatment decisions – and which types of patients they choose to accept. Read more...
At Strong, we believe it is our duty to treat patients to the best of our ability. Our protocol requires that all patients, regardless of their expected outcome, be treated in the cardiac catheterization lab if there is a chance they may benefit from angioplasty. As a result, Strong’s numbers, although at times above the state average, reflect the deaths of patients who came to Strong critically ill.