Albany, NY – New York health officials have begun posting online data about cardiac surgeries, hospitals and the doctors statewide who perform them, including their cases from 2008 to 2010 and mortality rates.
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Other information posted on the Health Data NY website includes environmental radiation surveys at various facilities and sites around New York. The measures of levels in the air, water, milk, fish, sediment and vegetation are used to determine normal levels and the effects from what people are doing.
The site now lists Medicaid program enrollments by region, child obesity by school district, restaurant food inspection results and availability of nursing home beds.
Raw mortality rates are completely misleading. For example: My mother needed a heart procedure about 10 years ago, at age 78.
In Florida, at a major hospital near Ft. Lauderdale, and at a prominent Brooklyn hospital, the doctors were afraid to do anything but a stent. However, one doctor there, renowned for performing high-risk operations that tend to save patients’ lives, was willing to do a triple bypass. He did the procedure, and baruch hashem, my mother is still going on at age 88 today.
However, because he does the high risk patients and high risk procedures, he will have a much worse mortality figure than doctors who choose to do nothing, or low risk procedures. Patients dying because of an operation not done do not show up in their statistics.
Which doctor would you rather go to?