Tri-City Medical Center also Honored with Resuscitation Award

Oceanside CA— Tri-City Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation’s secondary prevention guidelines for patients with heart failure.
This marks the fourth year that Tri-City Medical Center has been recognized with a Gold Plus quality achievement award for its heart failure care.
Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure is a quality improvement program that helps hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, research-based standards with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. Launched in 2005, numerous published studies have demonstrated the program’s success in achieving patient outcome improvements, including reductions in 30-day readmissions.
Tri-City Medical Center earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure patients. These measures include evaluation of the patient, proper use of medications and aggressive risk-reduction therapies, such as ACE inhibitors/ARBs, beta-blockers, diuretics, anticoagulants, and other appropriate therapies. Before patients are discharged, they also receive education on managing their heart failure and overall health, get a follow-up visit scheduled, as well as other care transition interventions.
“Tri-City Medical Center and its Cardiovascular Health Institute are dedicated to maintaining the highest quality of care for our heart failure patients, and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure program helps us to accomplish this goal by tracking and measuring our success in meeting internationally-respected guidelines,” said Steve Dietlin, CEO, Tri-City Medical Center.
Tri-City Medical Center also received the association’s Target: Heart FailureSM Honor Roll. Target: Heart Failure is an initiative that provides hospitals with educational tools, prevention programs and treatment guidelines designed to reduce the risk of heart failure patients ending up back in the hospital. Hospitals are required to meet criteria that improves medication adherence, provides early follow-up care and coordination and enhances patient education. The goal is to reduce hospital readmissions and help patients improve their quality of life in managing this chronic condition.
“We are pleased to recognize Tri-City Medical Center for their commitment to heart failure care,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines program. Get With the Guidelines research has demonstrated the impact of lowering 30-day readmissions and reducing mortality rates.”
According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million adults in the United States suffer from heart failure, with the number expected to rise to eight million by 2030. Statistics show that each year about 870,000 new cases are diagnosed and about 50 percent of those diagnosed will die within five years. However, many heart failure patients can lead a full, enjoyable life when their condition is managed with proper medications or devices and with healthy lifestyle changes.
Tri-City Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®-Resuscitation Silver Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association for the treatment of patients who suffer cardiac arrests in the hospital.
More than 200,000 adults and children have an in-hospital cardiac arrest each year, according to the American Heart Association. The Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program was developed with the goal to save lives of those who experience in-hospital cardiac arrests through consistently following the most up-to-date research-based guidelines for treatment. Guidelines include following protocols for patient safety, medical emergency team response, effective and timely resuscitation (CPR) and post-resuscitation care.
Tri-City Medical Center received the award for meeting specific measures in treating adult and newborn patients who suffer in-hospital cardiac arrests in the hospital.
“Tri-City Medical Center is dedicated to helping our patients have the best possible outcome and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program will help us accomplish this by making it easier for our teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis,” said Steve Dietlin, CEO, Tri-City Medical Center.
“We are pleased to recognize Tri-City Medical Center for their commitment in following these guidelines,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., “Shortening the time to effective resuscitation and maximizing post-resuscitation care is critical to patient survival.”
Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation builds on the work of the American Heart Association’s National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, originally launched in 1999 and has collected in-hospital cardiac arrest data from more than 500 hospitals. Data from the registry and the quality program give participating hospitals feedback on their resuscitation practice and patient outcomes. The data also help improve research-based guidelines for in-hospital resuscitation.
To receive these awards a hospital must comply with the quality measures for one year.