The chance of dying after being admitted to area hospitals is at or below the national average.

The data is part of a first-ever public accounting of mortality rates at thousands of hospitals across the United States.

“It’s a good first step. It brings more transparency,” said Dr. Greg Kutcher, president and CEO of Immanuel St. Joseph’s-Mayo Health System in Mankato.

The data Hospital Compare Web site is operated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/hospital/mortalitytool)

The site provides the death rates for three common serious ailments: heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia. (Heart failure is a chronic condition in which the heart is not pumping blood as well as it should. People with heart failure have often had a heart attack.)

ISJ was at the national mortality rate for heart attack and heart failure (16.2 percent and 11.2 percent respectively), and they were below the national average for deaths from pneumonia with 9.2 percent.

The more detailed information is seen as a better way to compare hospitals and hold them accountable. In the past, reports didn’t list actual death rates but simply said a hospital was at, better or below the national average.

Still, Kutcher said looking only at mortality rates misses a broad range of other measures of a hospital’s quality. He said ISJ continues on a systematic and system-wide quality improvement effort.

“We’re very happy about where we’ve come. We keep improving.”

Colleen Spike, CEO of the St. Peter hospital, agrees. “The premise is very good, transparency is good, but I’m not sure we’ve come up with the right structure for people to really compare facilities.”

She said that while the death rate reporting mechanism is sound, it is information that doesn’t offer the depth people really need to make decisions about a hospital’s quality.

“That’s its biggest flaw. If people just look at isolated numbers it can be misleading. That’s true with any reporting mechanism.”

St. Peter was at the national mortality rate average for heart attack patients (16 percent) and better than the average for heart failure and pneumonia (10.4 percent and 10.5 percent respectively.)

Kutcher said ISJ has targeted making improvements in the care of pneumonia and heart failure patients in recent years.

“We weren’t doing as well as we needed to, and in the past couple of years we’ve really improved in both areas.”