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Home > News
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| Wednesday, September 29, 2010
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Contact: Debra Thompson
Director, RMH Corporate Communications
540-564-5886
Tiffany McGhee, RN, MS, MPH, director of quality improvement, American Heart Association mid-Atlantic (third from left), presents the AHA's Get with the Guildelines-Heart Failure Bronze Award to RMH team members. |
RMH has received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines®—Heart Failure Bronze Performance Achievement Award.
The award recognizes RMH’s success in ensuring that heart failure patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.
“RMH is dedicated to making our care for heart failure patients among the best in the country,” said William Lee, MD, medical director for cardiology quality, RMH Heart and Vascular Center. “Through the use of Get With the Guidelines, we can focus on the factors of care that have been proven through evidence-based research to have the most positive impact on patient care and survival.”
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. To receive the award, RMH consistently followed for 90 days the secondary prevention guidelines outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology in the Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure program.
“The goal of this program is to help hospitals like RMH implement evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and deaths in these patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, MD, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee. ”Published scientific studies are providing us with more and more evidence that Get With The Guidelines works. Patients are getting the right care they need, when they need it. That’s resulting in improved survival.”
In accordance with Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure treatment guidelines, heart failure patients in the hospital undergo assessment of heart function and receive counseling on smoking cessation, a heart-healthy diet, weight monitoring, recommendations for exercise level, discharge medications, and instructions on what to do if symptoms worsen, along with assistance scheduling follow-up appointments.
“This milestone was achieved with the collaboration of many RMH team members,” said Dave Grembi, director, RMH Heart and Vascular Center. “They include our Quality and Patient Safety department, our inpatient nursing staff, RMH Inpatient Physicians, RMH Heart and Vascular Center staff, cardiologists and primary care physicians. We are thankful for the tremendous team effort that made this possible.”
According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million people suffer from heart failure. Statistics also show that each year, more than 292,200 people will die of heart failure.
RMH was awarded the American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Bronze Performance Achievement Award in April. For more information about the Get With The Guidelines program, visit www.heart.org/quality.
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