Christiana Care earns Gold Award for quality care in treatment of heart attack

Christiana Care earns Gold Award for quality care in treatment of heart attack

Christiana Care Health System consistently followed the treatment guidelines in ACTION Registry®-GWTG for eight consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures to receive this 2013 award.
Christiana Care Health System consistently followed the treatment guidelines in ACTION Registry®-GWTG for eight consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures to receive this 2013 award.

The Center for Heart & Vascular Health at Christiana Care Health System received the American College of Cardiology Foundation’s ACTION Registry–GWTG Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2013 — one of only 32 hospitals nationwide to do so.

The award recognizes Christiana Care’s commitment and success in carrying out a higher standard of care for heart-attack patients and for strictly following care recommendations from the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association.

To get the award, Christiana Care followed the treatment guidelines for eight quarters in a row and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific measures. Following these care guidelines improves adherence to ACC/AHA clinical guideline recommendations. The registry monitors drug safety and the overall quality of care provided to heart-attack patients.

“This honor belongs to the physicians and staff at the Center for Heart & Vascular Health who partner with our patients to provide exceptional care,” said Timothy J. Gardner, M.D., medical director and past national president of the American Heart Association. “There is no better time to focus on improving the quality of cardiovascular care by carrying out these guidelines, as the number of heart-attack patients eligible for care is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing number of people with heart disease and a large aging population.”

“The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association commend Christiana Care for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said James Jollis, M.D., FACC, ACTION Registry-GWTG chair, and Co-chair Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., MPH, FACC, FAHA, in a joint statement.” The full implementation of acute and secondary prevention guideline-recommended therapy is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of heart-attack patients,” they said.

ACTION Registry–GWTG is a partnership between the American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association with support from the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care. ACTION Registry-GWTG empowers health care provider teams to treat heart attack patients according to the most up-to-date, science-based guidelines and establishes a national standard for understanding and improving the quality, safety and outcomes of care provided for patients with heart disease, specifically high-risk heart-attack patients.

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