Anderson and Clermont Hospitals Receive Heart Failure Care Award

Mercy Health - Cincinnati, which provides advanced, quality, compassionate care in your neighborhood through its care network, announces that Anderson and Clermont hospitals have each received the Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Bronze Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association.

The hospitals received the recognition for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation’s secondary prevention guidelines for the treatment of patients with heart failure.

“The heart care teams at Anderson and Clermont hospitals are dedicated to improving the quality of care for our heart failure patients,” said Ken James, Interim Mercy Health East Market President and CEO. “I congratulate our dedicated nurses, doctors and staff for implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure program. It helps us accomplish our quality and patient care goals by tracking and measuring our success in meeting internationally-respected clinical guidelines.” 

Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure is a quality improvement program that helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines 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.

Anderson and Clermont hospitals earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure patients at a set level for a designated period. These measures include evaluation of the patient, proper use of medications and aggressive risk-reduction therapies. These would include ACE inhibitors/ARBs/ARNIs, 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.

“We are pleased to recognize Mercy Health Anderson and Clermont hospitals 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.

The AHA/ACC has also recognized Mercy Health – Fairfield and West Hospitals for excellence in heart failure care.

Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.