Le Bonheur Earns Top STS Rating

Le Bonheur’s Heart Institute recently received the highest possible rating, three stars, from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). Only 10 of the STS’s 117 participating programs received three-stars in the Fall 2015 STS Congenital Heart Surgery Database Feedback Report. The three-star rating is awarded
for excellence in cardiac surgery outcomes in a four-year period from 2011-2015.

The STS Congenital Heart Surgery Database compiles data from pediatric heart programs across the country and publishes surgical outcome information twice a year. Participating programs receive a one- to three-star rating semi-annually. The ratings are based on STS’s mortality risk model, which takes into account the hospital’s number of actual mortalities versus expected mortalities for a certain illness or condition.

The average survival rates for the majority of heart surgeries at Le Bonheur are considerably higher than the national average – especially in the most complex like the Norwood procedure – according to the STS report.