Lawrence Memorial Hospital jumped from worst to not-quite-first in the latest report ranking how Kansas City-area hospitals treat heart attack patients.

“We’re thrilled to rank so high,” said Gene Meyer, president and chief executive of the hospital.

Tuesday’s report showed that LMH followed “recommended care” for treating heart attack patients 98 percent of the time — better than all but two of 18 area hospitals, and a stark improvement from the 66 percent ranking LMH received in a similar report in September.

Meyer said LMH’s treatment of heart attack patients hadn’t improved that much. Instead, hospital staffers have done a better job with the paperwork.

“It was a concentrated effort by our medical staff to frankly improve documentation on some of the medical procedures they were performing,” Meyer said. “It’s not that they weren’t doing good care before.”

The University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., also scored well, with a 97 percent ranking for heart attack care. The average score for all reporting hospitals was 90 percent.

Tuesday’s rankings, part of a national reporting project called “The Quality Initiative: A Public Resource on Hospital Performance,” gave LMH high marks in other areas as well. A government agency, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, led the project.

• LMH scored 95 percent for heart failure care, up from 78 percent during the September report, and better than the 85 percent average for all area hospitals. KU Hospital also received a 95 percent score.

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• LMH received an 85 percent score for pneumonia care, up from 74 percent in September and well above the 75 percent average for reporting hospitals.

KU Hospital suffered its worst score in this category, a below-average 70 percent. That was an improvement, however, from the hospital’s dead-last tally of 61 percent in September.

“We think the next quarterly report will show the most significant change,” said Dennis McCulloch, a spokesman for the hospital. “The issue with us is one of proper charting and documentation, rather than care. But that’s part of the quality process.”

Meyer, meanwhile, praised his staff for their work to improve LMH’s rankings.

“I think our medical staff saw the first report as not a good indicator of the quality of care that was given, and sought to improve that,” he said. “We want our community to have confidence in us.”