Maimonides Medical Center’s heart is in top rate shape – and jumping for joy after being voted one of the best three hospitals for cardiac care in the nation, according to a federal report. Maimonides, alongside New York Presbyterian in Manhattan and Hillcrest Hospital in Ohio, made the excellence roll in the top category for treating both heart failure and heart attacks in a survey conducted by the watchdog group, which rated 5,000 hospitals across the country to compare mortality rates for patients with ailing hearts.
(Source: Courier-Life)
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23 Responses
This has got to be a practical joke.
It must be a printing error.Masimonides is one of the 3 worst hospitals in the country for everything.
I can name victims of their cardiac care .Unfortunately the victims are no longer alive to speak for themselves.
Most Frum Jews prefer Lutheran or Methodist Hospitals to Maimonides
They certainly have come a long way!
What they did NOT include in the survey was how many yidden in Maimonides recover due to Tehilim and tfilos recited for their recovery!
If Honolulu had such a tzibur yidden, their hospital would have come out on top.
They have good cardiac care once you get passed the ER.
Pay attention to the word, “voted”.
Since when is a vote taken as to the best hospital for cardiac care?
One would use objective data and study it, come to conclusions and publish them.
Someone should go read the original article, and see who or how it voted.
It refers to a “federal report”. what were the questions asked?
To me its funny, because I am in Ohio, and Hillcrest is a small community hospital, and one might prefer to only go in a true emergency.
I know one of the big internist in maimonides who had his heart surgery in cedar sinai in california WHY???? What about the Mayo clinic and mass Gen.and John hopkins in Md.are they worse than maimonides? I’m afraid this survey is a farse
If you believe this, I have a nice bridge to sell you. Maimonides is a horrible hospital, probably the worst in nyc. If you’re a V.I.P you’ll get taken care of. If your just a regular yid, you can peiger away. they just won’t care…
We are in Kislev; not Adar. Purim is still a long way off!!!
wonderfull to know since i do live in boro park!!!
I had 5 children in this hospital, twice had surgery here. Other family members had surgery here as well. My experiances were mostly positive. I do agree that the ER is way understaffed. A hospital is not a five star hotel, also many patients who are admited do not have their own doctor and have to rely on the resident doctor who is not familiar with the patients history. I have a relative who is a vegetable l”a because of a mistake in Mount Sinai.
The problem I belive Maimanodies has is that we are a vey close knit community and when one person has a problem everyone knows about it and every one talks about it. When someone has a problem in a “Manhaten” hospital who cares. Hashem should help we should never need the services of any hospital.
According to US News and World Report it doesn’t even rank in the top 50.
http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-hospitals/search.php?spec=ihqcard&start=0&
I am a physician who works in Maimonides and can personally attest to the incredible Chillul Hashem perpetuated daily by the frum yidden who come there. Many seem to feel they are better than everyone else and should get instant service with silver gloves. Never mind that there may be many, sicker patients than them, as soon as someone tells them to wait they are on the phone with everyone they know trying to get “VIP” service. The staff, quite frankly, is fed up and has learned to dislike the yiddishe patients, although they work hard to hide it.
I have worked in many hospitals in NY and elsewhere in the country and I can tell you that the care given in Maimonides is no better or worse than care given elsewhere. All hospitals today are understaffed, mostly due to the fact that insurance companies continue to drop reimbursement rates and without money it is impossible to hire enough people.
I had a patient at Cornell who would have died in their ICU if not for my intervention. Another one at Columbia also may have died if not for the good-hearted intervention of a specialist from Maimonides. All hospitals have their pros and cons, but for some reason the frum community has chosen to bash Maimonides.
BTW–one of the specialists at Maimonides once asked me why so few Rabbi’s refer patients to him. He used to work in Manhatten, at one of the smaller hospitals (I had never even heard of it). When he was there, the Rabbi’s all had his cell number and referred numerous patients to him. He enjoyed working with the frum community, and part of the reason he moved to Maimonides was to be more accessible to the community. Now that he is here, he rarely hears from a Rabbi and is overlooked by many. He is the same doctor, internationally renowned, with the same credentials and standing in the medical field, but simply bec. he is affiliated with Maimonides he is blacklisted. Does that make sense?
I only know one thing. I was with my grandfather in the er. He was left in the ER for 28 hours before he was admitted. It was really hellish. As I said then if someone isn’t sick before he came in, He’ll certainly be by the time he’s admitted. THEY JUST DON’T CARE.. How long did it take for me to get a nurse to help him etc etc etc? All I can say is I felt as if I’m in a third world country but for the price of American healthcare.
Response to “voted.” Anyone really interested in evidence (data based) as to the performance of Maimonides is welcome to look at “report cards” for hospitals. One is Healthgrades and another is myhealthfinder.com. You navigate within the site to find Maimo and check out the comparison data between hospitals. Healthgrades tells you in what areas a hospital has received awards or recognition for excellence. There is also publicly reported data from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare to which hospital must report data. True, ppl may have a negative experience anywhere and in a community which is so dense and the hospital so small(ER esp. is so small), there are bound to be frustrations. Advice- bring a family member, have patience- there is no hotel service, and most of all, question your doc/nurse/etc. about your care, discuss your care and to make sure you understand one another! I think you’ll find that maimonides does score well when it comes to several area- cardiac, pulmonary, stroke, for example. Last, respect (derech eretz)from both providers of health care and patients, along with their family members, goes a long way to affect a positive hospital experience.
To “someone in BP”. totally agree as RN in MMC.
BP: You are absolutely correct regarding the Chillul Hashem that unfortunately many Jews have made to doctors in Maimonides and its really terrible.
To everyone else: I personally am close with one of the chiefs of the cardiac division in Maimonides and he himself is one of the best in Cardiology in America right now. Everyone is arguing from the point that Maimonides is not the best hospital and true is does have its share of problems- but you can’t argue against the Cardiology unit which really is one of the best in the country and with some if the best Cardiologists in NYC if not the country. Go to the Maimonides website and see their credentials!
My father was a patient in Maimonides recently. The ER was indeed awful (He was there abuot 13 hours till they found him a bed – the place was jam packed) but the care was AMAZING. The nurses were for the most part concerned and caring and patient with his problems – and he unfortunately had mamy. The doctors were professional, knowledgeable and sumpathetic.
And don’t think we had no experiences in other hospitals. My father had been in Memorial-Sloan just a few months before, and, believe it or not, we found the care in Maimonides to be comparable. And in Maimonides, they have more respect for life than elsewhere – they don’t wriet off a patient just because there is no “quality of life”.
The Bikur Cholim certainly added to the positive experience. And don’t forget the convenience of not having to drive or get rides to Manhattan…
We wrote a letter to the administration of the hospital after discharge, but I want to repeat uor feelings of gratitude to Maimonides here in public as well.
and now for the facts, folks:
according to the state of new york, coney island hospital is better in heart attack care than maimo. I never understood why our community looks for designer duds to wear and then goes to a shlock hospital, because that is what maimo is — they give third world treatment to patients, and are completely out of bounds when it comes to making health decisions — I was involved in trying to have a little girl transferred –and because of the fact that the parents were immigrants and didn’t know their rights, the social worker and doctors ran rough-shod over them, even threatening to have ACS called on the parents for child abuse if the child was moved. A volunteer who knew English and knew patient rights had to sit in the hospital as the ambulance from the other hospital came — and the new hospital had the kid diagnosed 1,2,3 — a few days too late — the child could not be saved anymore. There should be no forgiveness for murder — and medical negligence and arrogance is often-times just that. There is a reason why one of the Gedolim doesn’t let his Chassidim into that place even for an x-ray. But look below at the State of NY stats:
Overall Heart Attack Care (composite score)
What these numbers mean: A heart attack happens when the arteries leading to the heart become blocked and the blood supply is slowed or stopped. The measure shows how often a hospital gave recommended care to their patients who were having heart attacks.
Source: NYSDOH. This measure is a weighted average of all mandatory heart attack measure data.
Date: These data cover the period January 1-December 31, 2006.
Hospital
Coney Island Hospital 98.04%
Long Island College Hospital 97.40%
State Average 95.49%
Lutheran Medical Center 94.80%
Maimonides Medical Center 94.02%
Measures for this condition / procedure:
Overall Heart Attack Care (composite score)
Aspirin given on arrival
Beta blocker given on arrival
Thrombolytic treatment received quickly
PCI treatment received quickly
Smokers advised to quit
Medications for LVSD prescribed at discharge
Aspirin prescribed at discharge
Beta blocker prescribed at discharge
to sephardicpride and ‘someone in bp’ there is no question that our community can create a chilul hashem which is wrong! but as ‘someone in bp wrote’ “the staff is fed up with the jewish patients” if so why should the people that dont create a chilul hashem be subjected to the arrogant and nasty nurses in that hospital. my mother in law was recently in the “cicu” i must say the care was EXCELLENT but once she was moved to a regular floor it was a horrible experience.There is alot more to good cardiac care than having good doctors which maimonides has. The nursing care has to improve alot in order for it to really be considered a top hospital.
to 16: [sephardicpride]
I guess US News didn’t hear of Maimonides. See post # 11.
The doctor asked why people don’t get referred to Maimonides? Cardiac-wise, when my father-in-law was there, 1. in PICU, nobody could explain to us why he was so disoriented, didn’t know who his family was, essentially hallucinating. The nurse said, “You know, that’s how old people are.” He was 66 at the time and learning Gemara the day before so don’t give me that baloney. A doctor walks in, “they’ll be taking that tube out in a few days.” A nurse walks in literally 30 seconds later, removes the tube. One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. Upstairs, after the surgery, the blood pressure is going up and down like a roller coaster for a few days, you think a nurse would tell a doctor? No, I have to call up from New Jersey to get his doctor involved. Psychiatric is lousy.
If you don’t have your own doctor and you are at their mercy, Heaven help you. They gave a relative so much medication that she developed a fever so they wanted to do a spinal tap because why did she get a fever. We said no. ECHO told me, it’s from all the medication. Thank you, got her off the meds, fever went away.
Obstetrics? Those who hadn’t had a baby elsewhere don’t have a clue how bad it is. They do ridiculous things that nobody else does-give you a vile antiacid in case you throw up, for example. I had other babies in 2 different hospitals, they never did it. My baby died in Maimonides,it wasn’t their fault but they mishandled it so badly. I knew the baby was in trouble before he was born so I didn’t trust them to deliver a live baby (with all their old fashioned rules I’ll G-d forbid land up with a C-section or a miserable birth) but a baby who won’t live anyway, what can they do. Well, they made it a worse experience than it had to be.
Another piece- if you are looking at data, remember that the data from the NYSDOH reporting reflects a 2 year lag. This is because they are understaffed. Its also important to understand how the data is collected. For example, even if the patient received the appropriate care, if the indicator (i.e., beta blocker on discharge) was not given because the patient couln’t tolerate it, but the patien’s chart does not reflect this in the wording prescribed by the DOH, then it cannot be counted in the numerator. The denominator is the amount of patients reviewed with, for example, a heart attack, and the numerator the # of patients receiving that care. Anyhow, the whole thing is very complex, many facors go into the collecting and reporting of data. In any case all hospitals experience the same issues with data collection. Its just something to keep in perspective. Most hospitals work on improving these numbers all the time for patient safety and mandatory performance improvement- if not they will not be compliant with law and recommended practice… so their are agencies overseeing this sort of thing on an ongoing basis! Including ED wait times…
yiddishemama could be my sister! (are you?) We had almost the exact same experience. Memorial messed up with my father big time; in fact, they are basically the reason he is no longer in this world (they and the malach hamoves). Maimonides worked and worked with us on my father and didn’t give up till the last moment. The nurses were caring and respectful, the doctors were responsive and helpful. The physical facilities are atrocious, it’s true, and my father, hk”m, was in the emergency room for nearly a day, but the hospital has a 90% or higher occupancy rate – what else can you expect? We are very grateful to the hospital.