Ogden Regional Medical Center has both an internal and external panel scrutinizing the hospital's heart surgery procedures after a fourth patient died since the first of the year.
While the internal and external reviews are going on, no cardiac surgery will be performed, said Pam Fogle, director of marketing and media relations for the hospital. Surgeries are expected to resume within a couple of weeks.
Last week's decision to temporarily suspend cardiovascular operations was made so the reviews could be thorough and prompt, without distractions, instead of working around other things like the surgery schedule, she said.
One goal of the study is to determine whether there is even a problem.
Each year, between 120 and 125 heart surgeries are performed at Ogden Regional. The four deaths are well within expected ranges given the type of surgery involved and how severely ill the patients were. But the equivalent of a death a month is above what the hospital's heart surgery service has experienced in the past, Fogle said, and that raised some concern.
Because the hospital also has a new surgeon on board who has been integrating advanced techniques and processes into the operating room, it also seemed "like a good time to look at this. We have no idea if that's a factor or not, but it's something we're doing different, so it's worth looking," she said.
The internal review will be augmented by an independent, external peer review from other surgeons in the specialty who are not affiliated with the hospital. Techniques, processes, anesthesia, equipment and technology — even the number of staffers providing support in the operating room during heart surgery — will all come under scrutiny, according to Fogle.
No information has been released on the specifics of the four deaths.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com