HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital/Prairie Heart Institute receives performance award
From Illinois Business Journal news services
BELLEVILE – HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital has received the American College of Cardiology’s NCDR ACTION Registry–GWTG Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2015. St. Elizabeth’s Hospital is one of only 319 hospitals nationwide to receive the honor.
The National Cardiovascular Data Registry award recognizes the cardiology department colleagues’ and physicians’ commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients and signifies that St. Elizabeth’s Hospital has reached an aggressive goal of treating these patients to standard levels of care as outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association clinical guidelines and recommendations.
GWTG is an acronym for Get With the Guidelines, a phrase advanced by the American Heart Association.
To receive the award, St. Elizabeth’s consistently followed registry treatment guidelines for eight consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures. Full participation in the registry engages hospitals in a robust quality improvement process using data to drive improvements in adherence to guideline recommendations and overall quality of care provided to heart attack patients.
“The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association commend St. Elizabeth’s for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols. The full implementation of acute and secondary prevention guideline-recommended therapy is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of heart attack patients,” said James Jollis, MD, FACC, ACTION Registry-GWTG chair and professor of Medicine and Radiology at Duke University Hospital.
Treatment guidelines include administering aspirin upon arrival and discharge, timely restoration of blood flow to the blocked artery, smoking cessation counseling and cardiac rehabilitation, among others.
“This award is a proud achievement for our entire cardiac team. It reflects the hard work and dedication of the colleagues and physicians who care for some of our most seriously ill patients and their families,” said Bonita Schnieder, MS RT and director Heart and Vascular Services at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
“The implementation of these guidelines requires successful coordination of the cardiovascular team and emergency personnel and is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of heart attack patients.”
St. Elizabeth’s Hospital has been named an Action Registry – GWTG Platinum Award recipient as well as being named a Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospital in the country by Truven Health Analytics for three consecutive years.
St. Elizabeth’s is also a partner of the nationally recognized Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants, the largest group of cardiologists in the tri-state region who staff the Prairie Heart Institute at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital along with a network of community-based hospitals offering cardiovascular programs.
Prairie Heart Institute services are provided at all the hospitals in the Southern Illinois Division of Hospital Sisters Health System, which includes HSHS St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Belleville, HSHS St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital in Effingham, HSHS, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Breese, and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Highland.
