One way to measure a hospital's ability to perform heart surgery and procedures well is to look at the volume of patients who received care through the hospital and clinic offices. Hospitals with higher volumes of patients with heart disease attract the leading cardiology specialists, surgeons, researchers and nurses.

At Vanderbilt over the past five years, there has been:

• a 23% increase in cardiac surgical volume
• a 28% increase in interventional cardiology procedures
• a 70% increase in transfers to Vanderbilt Medical Center from five selected key affiliated sites

While cardiac surgery has declined in the U.S. in recent years, the volume has increased at Vanderbilt, as the chart below show: