PORTLAND (AP) – Maine hospitals performed well in two separate assessments designed to measure quality of care for heart patients and overall levels of patient satisfaction, the Maine Hospital Association said Tuesday.

In the areas of heart attack and heart failure treatments, participating hospitals collectively scored better than 97 percent of the hospitals in a national database.

In terms of patient satisfaction, Maine hospitals exceeded a national norm 175 times in 16 categories, while falling below the norm on only four occasions.

The association, which represents 38 hospitals throughout the state, said it voluntarily undertook the two quality improvement projects with the intention of releasing reliable and comparable hospital data to the public.

The projects relied on outside vendors to compile and analyze the data.

The clinical quality project focused on heart attacks and heart failure because heart disease is among the most frequent causes of hospitalization in Maine’s community hospitals.

The analysis of medical records, conducted by the Northeast Health Care Quality Foundation, measured whether hospitals dispensed appropriate drugs at specified times during the hospitalization. It also measured whether heart failure patients had a diagnostic test for heart function and whether heart attack patients who smoke were advised about how to kick the habit.

Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington and Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway all received a top five-star rating for heart attack response. Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston and Bridgton Hospital each received four stars, still ranking them above the national norm.

For heart failure response, Saint Mary’s received a five, while the other four hospitals received fours.

The patient satisfaction project, administered by Avatar International, surveyed discharged patients by mail over a three-month period.

The patients were questioned on a broad range of topics, from pain management and nursing and physician care to admissions, billing and meals.

Of the five central and western Maine area hospitals, Bridgton received the highest overall score – four stars – which is a summary rating by Avatar of all topics surveyed. The other four hospitals received three stars, the national norm.

The only hospital of the five local hospitals to receive a rating below the three-star national norm in any of the 16 patient satisfaction categories was Stephens, which received two stars for “getting around” (the ease with which the patient is able to move throughout the facility) and physician care.

Rumford Hospital was not listed within the survey results posted on the MHA’s Web site.

“We’re extremely pleased” with the results of the two projects, said Mary Mayhew, the Maine Hospital Association’s vice president for governmental affairs and public relations. “The heart attack and heart failure project confirms the findings of a couple of recent studies done by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

The projects represent part of a nationwide effort to standardize the assessment of health care quality and come up with a set of uniform measures, she said.

The assessments were not designed primarily to compare one hospital against another, she said, but to provide meaningful information to consumers and to help hospitals learn from one another in order to improve their level of care.

(Sun Journal enterprise editor Mark Mogensen contributed to this report.)