Summa Western Reserve Wins Award from American Heart Association

has been recognized by the American Heart Association for its quality of heart failure treatment.

The hospital recently received the Get With The Guidelines^®- Heart Failure Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association.  The recognition signifies that Summa Western Reserve Hospital has reached impressive benchmarks in the evidence-based treatment of heart failure patients.

“Summa Western Reserve Hospital is committed to delivering the highest level of quality and this is an example of that quality,” said Dr. Robert Kent, president and CEO of Summa Western Reserve Hospital. “Our success in doing so is validated by this recognition from the American Heart Association.”

Specifically, hospitals awarded the Get With The Guidelines - Heart Failure Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award have accomplished at least 12 consecutive months of 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure Quality Achievement indicators and at least 12 consecutive months of 75 percent or higher compliance with four of nine Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure Quality Measures for the same reporting period, which are reporting initiatives to measure and improve quality of patient care and outcomes.

Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides health care providers with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to improve outcomes, prevent future hospitalizations, and prolong lives.

Using Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure 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, prolonging and improving the lives of heart failure patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chairman of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.  “The goal of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is to help hospitals like Summa Western Reserve Hospital implement appropriate evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and the number of deaths in these patients 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.”

Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure helps Summa Western Reserve Hospital’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes.  The program provides hospitals with a web-based patient management tool, decision support, robust registry, real-time benchmarking capabilities and other performance improvement methodologies toward the goal of enhancing patient outcomes and saving lives.

This high-tech, evidence-based approach enables Summa Western Reserve Hospital to improve the quality of care it provides heart failure patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce health care costs by avoiding re-hospitalization.  

According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million people suffer from heart failure.  Statistics also show that, each year, 670,000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 277,000 people will die of heart failure.