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Utah’s hospitals rank the same as or better than the national rate for safety measures, according to federal data.

Two of Utah’s three dozen hospitals included even rank the best for one safety measure each in the complications and deaths data released earlier this year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Beehive state’s hospitals strive for good quality and patient outcomes, said David Gessel, executive vice president of the Utah Hospital Association.

These numbers from CMS are one of many rankings for hospitals, but Intermountain Medical Center recently touted a top safety ranking for heart attack patients with pride.

Dr. Trey O’Neal, an interventional cardiologist who leads the heart attack treatment team at the facility, said staff there has a “long-standing commitment” to giving patients quality care.

“Many cardiovascular programs, both locally and around the country, place other things before quality, so our foremost dedication to the most appropriate care is unique at Intermountain Medical Center, and that commitment shows in our outcomes,” O’Neal said.

Data includes 36 Utah hospitals

The CMS data ranks more than 4,000 hospitals across the country — including 36 in Utah — on 19 safety measures, such as the death rate for heart attack patients and how often patients get sepsis after an operation.

Five had rates placing them in the top 25 for various measures:

• Intermountain Medical Center tied with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and the NYU Langone Hospitals for the lowest death rate among heart attack patients.

• Utah Valley Hospital had the lowest rate of respiratory failure after an operation.

• St. George Regional Hospital had among the lowest rates of iatrogenic pneumothorax (when medical activity causes air to build up that could collapse the lungs) and deaths among heart attack patients.

• University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics had among the lowest rates of incisions reopening after they were stitched or stapled closed.

• VA Salt Lake City Healthcare George E. Wahlen VA Medical Center had among the lowest death rates of heart attack patients.

Every hospital had a rating that was the same as or better than the national rate for each safety measure.

Utahns’ relative youth and health are part of that, Gessel said, but so is the focus of health systems and providers.

“There’s been a culture of patient safety and quality here for decades,” he said. “That’s imbued in hospitals and clinicians.”

Hospitals always working to evaluate, improve

Gessel said there’s also a continuous improvement process.

When something does go wrong, there’s an internal or external peer review and the hospital makes fixes as needed, he said.

Bad outcomes don’t always have to do with the provider or the facility, he added.

The state also has worked with hospitals to improve safety and the doctor-patient relationship, Gessel said. He pointed specifically to legislation allowing early disclosure and resolution, a process where patients and providers can meet to talk in a non-legal setting about things that didn’t go the way they expected.

Other hospital rankings, data

The CMS safety ratings are just one way of many that people can evaluate hospitals and medical facilities.

The federal agency also gives hospitals one to five stars for quality based on mortality, safety, readmission, patient experience and timely and effective care.

The Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care, provides quality checks and reports for the general public.

And Utah’s Department of Health and Human Services has data available on hospital cost and quality.

Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.