St. Charles receives heart attack care award
St. Charles Health System has received the NCDR ACTION Registry®–GWTG™ (“Get With the Guidelines”) Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2012 from the American College of Cardiology Foundation.
St. Charles is one of only 164 hospitals nationwide to earn this award, recognizing commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients and reaching an aggressive goal of treating these patients to standard levels of care as outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) clinical guidelines and recommendations.
“The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association commend St. Charles Health System for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols.” said Gregg C. Fonarow, MD, FACC, FAHA, ACTION Registry-GWTG Steering Committee Chair and director of Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy. “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.”
To receive the Platinum Performance Achievement Award, St. Charles consistently followed the treatment guidelines for eight consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures. Following these treatment guidelines improves adherence to ACC/AHA Clinical Guideline recommendations, monitors drug safety and the overall quality of care provided to ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) patients.
“The time is right for St. Charles to be focused on improving the quality of cardiovascular care by implementing ACTION Registry–GWTG,” said Dr. Michael Widmer, a Heart Center cardiologist and director of St. Charles’ Heart 1 program. “The number of acute myocardial infarction patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing incidence of heart disease and a large aging population.”
For more information about ACTION Registry-GWTG, visit www.ncdr.com/action.
