The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association have honored St. Peter’s Hospital, an affiliate of St. Peter’s Health Partners, for providing excellent care to stroke and heart failure patients.
The associations recognized St. Peter’s Hospital with a Get With The Guidelines (GWTG)-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award and a GWTG-Heart Failure Bronze Achievement Award Hospital.
The awards were given in recognition of the hospital’s commitment and success in ensuring stroke and heart failure patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
GWTG quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke and heart failure patients. They focus on appropriate use of guideline-based care for stroke patients, including patient evaluations, proper use of medications, aggressive risk-reduction therapies, and patient education.
“Our greatest reward is serving our patients, so we are very pleased and proud to be recognized by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association for the quality of our care, said Ann Errichetti,” M.D., MBA, chief executive officer of St. Peter’s Hospital. “Congratulations and many thanks are due to the physicians, nurses, other providers, and staff at St. Peter’s Hospital whose hard work and dedication to quality resulted in these Get With The Guidelines awards.”
GWTG is a quality improvement program designed to help hospitals develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes to improve patient care and outcomes, help save lives and reduce readmissions rates, and ultimately reduce health care cost for stroke and heart failure patients. The program includes best practice discharge protocols and real-time benchmarking capabilities to track performance, as well as guidelines on helping patients manage their risk factors and recognize the warning signs of stroke and heart failure.
“We are pleased to recognize St. Peter’s Hospital for its commitment to stroke and heart failure care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the GWTG steering committee, and executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Studies have shown that hospitals which consistently follow GWTG quality improvement measures can reduce length of stay and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparities in care.”
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is fifth cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes, and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
Also according to the associations, 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.
These GWTG awards are the latest recognition of the quality care provided by St. Peter’s Hospital. Last year, St. Peter’s Hospital and Samaritan Hospital received national Chest Pain Center Accreditation with PCI from the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care. Also in 2015, St. Peter’s Hospital for the first time received the Women’s Choice Award as one of “America’s Best Hospitals for Cardiac Care and Vascular Care” and “America’s Best Hospitals for Obstetrics.” The hospital also recently received a “three-star” designation from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons for two open heart surgery procedures.
For more information on stroke and heart failure care at St. Peter’s Health Partners, visit: www.sphp.com/cardiac-vascular. For additional information on Get With The Guidelines, visit: www.heart.org/quality.
