HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake Cardiovascular Thoracic Team
Webster, TX — HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake has earned a distinguished three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) for its patient care and outcomes in isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures. The three-star rating, which denotes the highest category of quality, places HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake among the elite for heart bypass surgery in the United States and Canada and top in Houston.
“Achieving a three-star rating for a heart program as extensive as HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake's is no small feat,” said Todd Caliva, CEO at HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake. “Even major academic centers often grapple with the challenges of attaining this elite status. We are extremely proud that our community has access to one of the nation's top-tier bypass surgery programs, right here in Webster.”
The STS star rating system is one of the most sophisticated and highly regarded overall measures of quality in health care, rating the benchmarked outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery programs across the United States and Canada. The star-rating is calculated using a combination of quality measures for specific procedures performed by an STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database participant.
“It is exceptionally hard to achieve a three-star rating with a program as large as Clear Lake’s, which includes a large number of complex cases,” said Dr. Hannan Chaugle, medical director of cardiovascular surgery at HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake. “Even major academic centers are often challenged to reach this level of excellence.”
Approximately 20% of participants receive the three-star rating for isolated CABG surgery. The latest analysis of data for CABG surgery covers a 3-year period, from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2023 and includes 927 participants.
“The Society of Thoracic Surgeons congratulates STS National Database participants who have received three-star ratings,” said David M. Shahian, MD, chair of the task force on quality measurement. “Participation in the database and public reporting demonstrates a commitment to quality improvement in health care delivery and helps provide patients and their families with meaningful information to help them make informed decisions about healthcare.”
The STS National Database was established in 1989 as an initiative for quality improvement and patient safety among cardiothoracic surgeons. The Database includes four components: the Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD), the Congenital Heart Surgery Database (CHSD), the General Thoracic Surgery Database (GTSD), and the mechanical circulatory support database (Intermacs). The STS ACSD houses approximately 9 million surgical records and gathers information from more than 3,800 participating physicians, including surgeons and anesthesiologists from more than 90% of groups that perform heart surgery in the US. STS public reporting online enables STS ACSD participants to voluntarily report to each other and the public their heart surgery scores and star ratings.