A report on cardiac surgery in New Jersey, found that cardiac surgery death rates have dropped to their lowest level since the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services began issuing reports a decade ago. The state’s mortality rate has declined 54.5 percent between 1994 and 2004, including a nearly 12 percent drop from 2003 to 2004, according to the report ‘Cardiac Surgery in New Jersey 2004.
The Cardiac Surgery in New Jersey series focuses on a common cardiac surgical procedure – coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery with no other major surgery during the same hospital admission.
Details are available in the report at: www.nj.gov/health/healthcarequality/documents/cardconsumer04.pdf.
Four other states report on cardiac surgery outcomes. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts also examine 30-day mortality, while New York and California look at in-hospital deaths.