Heart attack patients have higher survival rates at hospitals – like Scott & White – who receive achievement awards from the American Heart Association’s “Get With The Guidelines” program, according to a recently published study.
The hospital performance study was authored by Dr. Paul A. Heidenrreich at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California. A report on the study appeared in the October issue of the American Heart Journal.
“Get With The Guidelines is a program that was designed to help hospitals become more effective in the way they delivered care to their patients,” said Scott & White cardiologist Dr. John P. Erwin III. “It was designed by the American Heart Association with tools and ways to report this, and ways to interact between hospitals – to compare and contrast the way we are doing our processes.”
According to Dr. Erwin, Scott & White’s mortality rate was cut in half after implementing improvement changes, despite being one of the better performing centers in the nation prior to implementing these methods.
Dr. Erwin said GWTG has recently melded with the American College of Cardiology ACTION Registry, bringing together two of the profession’s major organizations dealing with improvement and heart care quality.
To receive the ACTION Registry-GWTG Gold Performance Achievement Award, Scott & White memorial Hospital consistently followed the treatment guidelines in Action Registry-GWTG for 24 consecutive months.
Dr. Erwin said Scott & White data was included in the study review.
View the related news release.
