MEDIA RELEASE

North Hawaii Community Hospital has received the Get With The Guidelines – Heart Failure Silver Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association.

The recognition signifies North Hawaii Community Hospital has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients with 85 percent compliance for one year to core standard levels of care as outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.

Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides hospital staff with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to prevent future hospitalizations.

According to Get With The Guidelines – Heart Failure treatment guidelines, heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics and anticoagulants in the hospital.

They also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.

“The full implementation of national heart failure guideline recommended care is a critical step in preventing recurrent hospitalizations and prolonging the lives of heart failure patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass.

“The goal of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is to help hospitals like North Hawaii Community Hospital implement appropriate evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and the number of deaths in these patients. 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,” Schwamm said.

“North Hawaii Community Hospital is dedicated to making our care for heart failure patients among the best in the country. We will continue in our efforts and build off the success of this award by continued implementation of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines – Heart Failure program that allowed us to accomplish this goal,” said Ken Wood, NHCH president and CEO.

Get With The Guidelines – Heart Failure helps North Hawaii Community Hospital’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes. The program includes quality-improvement measures such as care maps, discharge protocols, standing orders and measurement tools.

This quick and efficient use of guideline tools will enable North Hawaii Community Hospital to improve the quality of care it provides heart failure patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks.

According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million people suffer from heart failure. Statistics also show that, each year, 670,000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 277,000 people will die of heart failure.