Miami, FL
— Palmetto General Hospital has received the
Get With The Guidelines®–Heart Failure Gold Performance Achievement Award from the American Heart Association.
The recognition signifies that Palmetto General Hospital has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients with 85% compliance for at least 24 months 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.
Under Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure, 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. Palmetto General Hospital has successfully implemented these quality measures for four quarters (01/01/09-12/31/09).
"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 Get With The Guidelines 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 Palmetto General Hospital 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 5.7 million people suffer from heart failure. Statistics also show each year more than 292,200 people will die of heart failure.
"Palmetto General Hospital is dedicated to making our care for heart failure patients among the best in the country and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure program will help us accomplish this goal by making it easier for our professionals to improve the long-term outcome for these patients," said Palmetto General Hospital CEO, Ana Mederos.
Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure helps Palmetto General Hospital’s staff 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 enable Palmetto General Hospital to improve the quality of care it provides heart failure patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks.
ABOUT PALMETTO GENERAL HOSPITAL
Palmetto General Hospital, part of Tenet's Miami-Dade/Broward Health Network, is a 360-bed acute-care hospital at 2001 W. 68th St. in Hialeah, Florida. The hospital has served the medical and health care needs of Northwest Miami-Dade and Southwest Broward counties for more than 30 years.
Palmetto General Hospital offers a broad range of services, including adult and pediatric emergency rooms, maternity, mental health, cancer center, hyperbaric, wound care, and sleep disorders center, a cardiac program that includes both medical and surgical services, a bariatric program that has been designated a Center of Excellence by the American Society for Bariatric Surgery and a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence as designated by the American College of Radiology. Palmetto General Hospital is fully accredited by The Joint Commission, the nation's oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency.
The hospital is the Best-Rated Hospital in Miami-Dade County for Bariatric Surgery and ranks second in Florida and among the Top 5% in the Nation for Bariatric Surgery for two consecutive years in a row by HealthGrades, a health care quality rankings company.
In addition it has earned a five-star rating and is among the top five percent of hospitals in the nation for maternity care by HealthGrades. The Hospital has also received 2009 American Heart Association Get With the Guidelines (GWTG) Gold Performance Achievement Award, 2009 American Heart Association/American Stroke Association – choose the America's Best Hospitals issue (July 2009) – US News and World Report to recognize the Hospitalfs for Achievements in Get With The Guidelines Programs. Palmetto General Hospital is also one of only 34 hospitals nationwide to earn Solucient's 100 Top Hospitals designation six or more times.