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Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center ranked among top 50 cardiovascular hospitals

Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls earned high marks on cardiovascular care from IBM Watson Health. File photo

Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center ranked among top 50 cardiovascular hospitals

The Cadillac of health rating organizations for patient outcomes, IBM Watson Health, has ranked the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls as one of the top 50 hospitals for cardiovascular care in the United States, selected from a pool of 989 hospitals evaluated for their inpatient cardiovascular services.

The 50 hospitals selected by IBM Watson Health were facilities that delivered superior outcomes for cardiovascular patients more efficiently and at a lower cost when compared to the rest of the hospitals evaluated.

In its Aug. 17 press release on the honor, EIRMC stated that if the top-50 level of care were available to all Medicare inpatients at all hospitals, then more than 11,000 additional lives could be saved, more than 2,800 additional heart patients could be complication-free and over $1.5 billion could be saved.

“Heart disease is the #1 leading cause of death both in the U.S. and globally, with 647,000 Americans dying of the illness,” said Dr. Patrick Gorman, interventional cardiologist and cardiovascular medical director at EIRMC. “As the primary facility in the region taking care of people with heart disease, we rely on our clinical staff and physicians, who have the expertise and commitment to help patients recover from this illness. This recognition speaks to the exceptional clinical care delivered at EIRMC.”

Two of the performance benchmarks set by this year’s IBM Watson Health 50 top cardiovascular hospitals include:

  • Significantly higher inpatient survival — the top-50 hospitals had significantly higher inpatient survival rates (28.7% to 47.4% higher)
  • Fewer complications — the top-50 hospitals had 6.3% to 27.7% fewer patients with complications

EIRMC is the largest medical facility in eastern Idaho. It is a full-service hospital with over 300 patient beds. It serves as a regional health care hub, serving central and eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park and southwest Montana. EIRMC is a Level-II Trauma Center, a Level-I ICU and the only pediatric ICU and Level-III Neonatal ICU in the region. The hospital also includes a full-spectrum cardiac care center and the only burn care program and burn-specific ICU and OR facility in the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

The IBM Watson Health Top Hospitals Program is acknowledged as one of the premier annual ranking studies in the United States. Every year, the organization evaluates and selects the top 15 health care systems, top 100 individual hospitals for overall patient outcomes and the top 50 individual hospitals for cardiovascular care. IBM evaluates metrics based on patient outcomes, efficiency and cost effectiveness. Health care organizations do not apply or pay for this honor or nor do they pay to promote their award.

Other Idaho health care organizations honored by IBM Watson Health this year are the St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus health care systems, ranked in the top-15 health care systems in the country; and West Valley Medical Center of Caldwell, ranked in the top-100 hospitals.

Both EIRMC and West Valley Medical Center are owned and operated by HCA Healthcare Inc. of Nashville.

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