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Press Releases
| American Heart Association Honors Kent Cardiac Services |
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09/19/07
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WARWICK, RI— Kent Hospital has received the Get With The GuidelinesSM–Heart Failure (GWTG–HF) Silver Performance Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The recognition signifies that Kent has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients with 85% compliance for one year to core standard levels of care as outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.
Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides hospital staff with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to prevent future hospitalizations. According to GWTG–HF treatment guidelines, heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics and anticoagulants in the hospital. They also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.
“The full implementation of national heart failure guideline recommended care is a critical step in preventing recurrent hospitalizations and prolonging the lives of heart failure patients,” said Gregg C Fonarow, M.D., National Chairman of the GWTG Steering Committee and director of Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center. “The goal of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is to help hospitals like Kent implement appropriate evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and the number of deaths in these patients.”
According to the American Heart Association, about 5.2 million people suffer from heart failure. Statistics also each year more than 57,000 people will die of heart failure.
“Kent Hospital is dedicated to making our care for heart failure patients among the best in the country. We will continue in our efforts and build off the success of this award by continued implementation of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure program that allowed us to accomplish this goal,” said Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs Dr. John Audett. “It is another indication of the major commitment to quality and superior patient outcomes that are present in our hospital and practiced each day by our physicians and staff.” Audett said that the hospital is continuing to advance the scope and quality of cardiac care with a certificate of need application to the RI Department of Health to allow the hospital to offer emergency coronary angioplasty for the treatment of acute heart attacks. “We will make our presentation to the Department of September 25,” he said, “and hope to be able to begin offering this live-saving standard of care by January of 2008.”
The AHA program serves as a guideline for Kent staff as they develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes. The program includes quality-improvement measures such as care maps, discharge protocols, standing orders and measurement tools. “This quick and efficient use of guideline tools will help Kent to improve the quality of care we provide to heart failure patients, to save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks,” said Dr. Audett.
The GWTG-Heart Failure module, developed with support from an unrestricted educational grant from GlaxoSmithKline, is being implemented in hospitals around the country. For more information on cardiac care programs and services at Kent, log onto the hospital website at www.kenthospital.org |
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