CVC Ratings & Recognition

The U-M Cardiovascular Center is one of the nation's top-rated centers for heart and blood vessel care. We are honored to be recognized by many organizations and publications that have cited our programs and people as leaders in a broad array of fields.

Some examples:

U.S. News & World Report magazine cites U-M cardiac and cardiac surgery care as some of the best in the nation, as part of its annual Best Hospitals ranking. In 2008, U-M ranked 18th overall for adult heart care, and in 2008 our Congenital Heart Center ranked 4th overall for pediatric heart care. Read more about the adult care ranking and the children's care ranking.

The CVC was named one of the nation's top 100 cardiovascular centers in 2006 and is part of the reason why the U-M Health System was named one of the nation's top 100 hospitals in 2007. Both rankings are from Thomson, formerly Solucient, which bases its rankings on measures of top-quality and high-value care including success in preventing deaths and complications among all patients, the number and quality of operations and procedures performed, how quickly patients are able to return home, and cost-related measures. Read more.

Get With The Guidelines-Stroke (GWTG-Stroke) is an in-hospital program designed to improve acute stroke treatment and prevent future strokes and cardiovascular events. GWTG-Stroke focuses on quick diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients through Primary Stroke Centers. It also involves care team protocols once patients are admitted to ensure that they are treated and discharged appropriately. UMHS is the only hospital in Michigan to achieve the Gold Performance Awards. Hospitals that have earned a Gold Performance Award follow treatment guidelines in certain key measures at least 85 percent of the time, and have maintained this performance level for two years or more. Read more (PDF).

More About U-M CVC Achievements

Three U-M CVC programs have met strict national criteria to achieve official certification from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the same body that rigorously reviews hospitals. The CVC has been recognized for the high quality and coordinated care provided within our Disease Management programs for patients with heart failure and stroke, and for our the heart-assisting device program, which cares for patients who rely on ventricular assist devices (VADs).

Read more on the disease management certification, the Stroke Program certification and the heart-assisting device certification.

The U-M Health System is one of the first 10 medical centers in the country to take part in Medicare's new program to measure and improve the quality of health care for all Medicare participants. Our heart disease management programs are a major component of this effort, and are being made available to Medicare participants with complex medical problems who are being treated by any U-M physician. Read more here.

U-M's high-quality heart care has led the American College of Cardiology and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to tap U-M experts to lead quality-improvement projects that involve many hospitals. Our research shows these multi-center projects have saved both lives and dollars. Now, these projects are serving as models for many other hospitals.

Read more about the U-M's leadership roles in the ACC's heart attack project, called Guidelines Applied in Practice, and in BCBSM's angioplasty project.

The Michigan Health and Safety Coalition's 2006 report shows that U-M far exceeded the thresholds for the recommended number of all cardiovascular procedures measured by the Coalition. This means U-M patients can be confident that our surgical and procedure teams have high levels of experience that go hand-in-hand with good outcomes. The procedures measured by the MHSC are: open-heart surgery, percutaneous coronary intervention (angioplasty and stenting), abdominal aortic aneurysm repair and carotid endarterectomy surgery.

The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit that set standards for high-quality and safe health care, and measures hospitals' performance against those standards, also gives U-M high marks for cardiovascular care. On all three heart-related measures -- coronary artery bypass surgery, percutaneous coronary intervention (angioplasty and stenting) and abdominal aortic aneurysm repair - U-M was rated in 2007 with the highest or the second-highest possible rating. Additionally, U-M received the highest possible rating possible in the measures of ICU staffing and Safe Practices. Very few hospitals nationwide have achieved the highest rating. Learn more about Leapfrog ratings by following the instructions for consumers to see U-M's ratings.