Primary PCI within 90 minutes of hospital arrival

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This measure is reported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to help consumers evaluate hospital performance as it relates to heart attack care. It is measuring the percentage of heart attack patients (acute myocardial infarction or AMI) who receive primary PCI within the first 90 minutes after arriving at our hospital and testing positive for signs of a heart attack.

PCI is short for percutaneous coronary intervention, which is a surgical procedure to open blocked blood vessels in the heart. There are a few PCI procedures surgeons use to open blocked vessels, including angioplasty, stenting, and artherectomy.

What does it mean and why is it important?

With any heart attack treatment, time is important. During a heart attack, the heart does not get enough oxygen and cannot pump blood as it should. The longer this continues, the more heart muscle is damaged or dies. The sooner the life-saving treatments are started, the better the chance of survival is.

Treatment for a heart attack involves procedures and medications that open the blood vessels and make the blood flow more easily through the heart. PCI is one of a number of treatments for a heart attack. Others are medications (for example, “clot busters”, blood thinners, beta blockers, and cholesterol-lowering medications) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), which is commonly known as heart bypass surgery.

Medical studies have shown that PCI performed within 90 minutes can increase a patient’s chance of surviving a heart attack and having a better quality of life afterward. The sooner PCI is performed, the more effective it is, which is why the 90 minute time frame is important.

How are we doing?

Our most recent score is 93%, which means that 93 percent of heart attack patients received primary PCI within 90 minutes after arriving at our hospital. The target score is 98%. The threshold, or acceptable score, is between 93% and 97%. Any score below 93% is considered below threshold. Exceptional performance is 100%. This means that our score for the most recent evaluation period is at the low end of the threshold range.

What are we doing to improve our performance?

We make it a goal to continually improve our performance, our patient outcomes, and our care delivery. We do not currently have quality improvement programs in place to improve upon this measure specifically, but we are always striving to provide the best possible care.

See more quality measures.