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Executives at three hospitals in Montgomery County say they intend to cut down on "patient complications" at their hospitals in response to a new state report that had the facilities scoring below the Maryland average.

Montgomery General Hospital in Olney, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville and Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park were joined by six other hospitals in being listed as worse than the state average on 49 categories of patient complications, according to a new report from the Health Services Cost Review Commission.

The complications included post-operative infections, heart attacks and urinary tract infections that resulted from the hospitalization rather than an underlying illness, said Dianne Feeney, the associate director of quality initiatives with the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission.

Susan Glover, senior vice president and chief quality officer for Adventist HealthCare, which operates Shady Grove Adventist and Washington Adventist, said hospital officials were "disappointed by our performance in the report."

"At our hospitals, we are committed to improving quality through evidence-based protocol and care practices," she said.

In a previous report, the hospitals needed to make improvements in the number of ventilator-associated pneumonia cases, Glover said. Last year the hospitals had zero ventilator-related pneumonia cases, and the hospitals will take the same "very focused, targeted approach" to improve areas that the new report shows need improvement, she said.

The commission's report is "very important and we certainly support that," said Dr. Roger Leonard, vice president of medical affairs at Montgomery General.

But the hospital also recently was named one of the best in the state by another medical association, and part of the difference lies in how the data are analyzed, he said.

The commission's report is built off of administrative claims data rather than clinical data, Leonard said.

But the hospital will analyze the report to make improvements where needed, he said.

Meanwhile, 23 hospitals fared better than the state average in the report, including Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring and Suburban Hospital in Bethesda.

The commission compared the rate of complications at hospitals across the state for the same types of ailments as a way to make fair comparisons, Feeney said.

The commission did not include hospitalization for HIV or cancer, because both of those are considered to have high complication rates, Feeney said.

Hospitals nationwide have focused more on their protocols to improve patient care not only for the underlying diseases, but to prevent secondary infections from the hospitalization, Feeney said.

The benchmarks will continue to tighten for Maryland hospitals in order to push the quality of health care, she said.

cford@gazette.net