Hialeah Hospital was one of 365 unique hospitals in the United States recognized by the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® program. Hialeah Hospital received the Gold Performance Award for coronary artery disease care and Gold Performance Award for heart failure care. Hialeah Hospital will be recognized on Nov. 16 at the association’s annual Scientific Sessions 2009, in Orlando, Fla.

      “Hialeah Hospital’s Get With The Guidelines recognition is a tribute to the commitment of their staff and healthcare professionals to ensuring quality patient care, using all the available evidence, guidelines and tools,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., Chair of the national Get With the Guidelines Steering Committee and Vice-Chair of the Neurology department  and director of acute stroke services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.  “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 after a stroke, heart attack or heart failure diagnosis.”

      To achieve gold level recognition, hospitals must reach an aggressive goal of treating patients for at least 24 months with 85 percent compliance to core standard levels of care as defined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology’s secondary prevention guidelines.  Silver level recognition requires hospitals to treat patients for at least 12 months with 85 percent compliance to standard levels of care.

      A complete list of recognized hospitals will be featured in a December 2009 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. 

      “Hialeah Hospital is committed to providing patients the highest quality care based on the most current and robust scientific research.  The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is giving our healthcare providers the tools they need to improve the quality of care and long-term outcomes of our cardiac patients,” said Hialeah Hospital CEO Ralph Aleman.

      The program includes quality-improvement measures, discharge protocols, standing orders and other measurement tools.  Providing hospitals with tools that make it easier to follow treatment guidelines has been shown to improve the quality of care provided to heart failure and coronary artery disease patients. 

This can help save lives and ultimately reduce overall healthcare costs by lowering readmission rates for heart attack and heart failure patients. 

      Studies have demonstrated that the use of the program has increased guidelines adherence, which may translate into reductions in mortality and secondary events.  For more information, visit www.americanheart.org/getwiththeguidelines.

Medtronic is a national sponsor of American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure Program.

The GWTG-CAD module is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Merck Schering Plough Pharmaceuticals.