Lankenau Medical Center earns prestigious three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons for its cardiac surgery patient care and outcomes

Lankenau Medical Center, part of Main Line Health, has earned a distinguished three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) for its patient care and outcomes for isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery, isolated aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery, and isolated mitral valve replacement and repair (MVRR) surgery. Isolated means the surgery is performed on the patient without any other procedure.

The three-star rating denotes the highest category of quality and highlights Lankenau Medical Center’s continued place among the elite institutions, placing it in the top 2.8% of hospitals for isolated AVR in addition to other high-level rankings. 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 in the United States and Canada. The rating is calculated using a combination of quality measures for specific procedures performed by an STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database surgeon participant.

The latest analysis of STS data covers a three-year period, from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2022. In addition to its three-star rating for isolated AVR, Lankenau ranked in the top 10% for isolated MVRR and the top 19.4% for isolated CABG.

“We are gratified to retain our high rankings from STS,” said Francis Sutter, DO, chief of cardiac surgery at Lankenau Medical Center. “Our patients deserve the most advanced cardiac therapies to ensure they get back to their families and their lives as soon as possible. These ratings demonstrate that we continue to deliver these surgical procedures at the highest levels. I am grateful to our heart team and hospital leadership for their continued dedication and excellence.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of each and every member of the Lankenau heart team,” said Basel Ramlawi, MD, system chief of cardiac surgery at Main Line Health. “We strive not only to deliver safe, high-quality care but to achieve advances in the field of cardiovascular medicine. Our robotic and hybrid approaches to coronary bypass surgery are unmatched in the region, and we continue to be among the elite in minimally invasive repair of the aortic and mitral valves. My congratulations go out to the entire team and I look forward to continued excellence in the years ahead.”

“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 health care.”

The STS National Database was established in 1989 as a voluntary 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 6.9 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.

About STS

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) is a not-for-profit organization that represents more than 7,300 surgeons, researchers, and allied health care professionals worldwide who are dedicated to ensuring the best possible outcomes for surgeries of the heart, lung, and esophagus, as well as other surgical procedures within the chest. The Society’s mission is to enhance the ability of cardiothoracic surgeons to provide the highest quality patient care through education, research, and advocacy.