title: St. Francis Health System overhauls heart attack care process.
abstract: For scoring in the top 20% of hospitals for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), Bon Secours' St. Francis Hospital, in Greenville, SC, received a $54,000 bonus check last November from a Medicare pay-for-performance demonstration project. By implementing several process improvements, including improving its door to balloon time--the time it takes for a heart attack patient to enter the emergency department and then having an angioplasty in the cardiac cath lab--St. Francis' composite quality scores improved to 98% from 90% for AMI, or heart attack.