Mercy Hospital Receives American College of Cardiology Award
For the second year in a row, Mercy Hospital of Buffalo, home to the Catholic Health Heart Center, has received the American College of Cardiology’s NCDR ACTION Registry–GWTG Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2017. Mercy Hospital is one of only 193 hospitals nationwide to receive the honor.
The award recognizes Mercy’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients and signifies that the Heart Center team 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.
To receive the ACTION Registry–GWTG Platinum Performance Achievement Award, Mercy Hospital consistently followed the treatment guidelines in the ACTION Registry–GWTG Premier for eight consecutive quarters and has performed at the top level of standards 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.
“As a Platinum Performance Award recipient, Mercy Hospital demonstrates our commitment to the highest quality of care for our heart attack patients,” said Aravind Herle, MD, Chief of Cardiology at Mercy Hospital. “By meeting the requirements set forth in the registry and following nationally-recognized guidelines for therapy, the Heart Center at Mercy Hospital is saving lives and improving outcomes of heart attack patients.”
The Center for Disease Control estimates that over 700,000 Americans suffer a heart attack each year. A heart attack occurs when a blood clot in a coronary artery partially or completely blocks blood flow to the heart muscle. 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.
ACTION Registry–GWTG is a partnership between the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association with partnering support from the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care. ACTION Registry-GWTG empowers health care provider teams to consistently treat heart attack patients according to the most current, science-based guidelines and establishes a national standard for understanding and improving the quality, safety and outcomes of care provided for patients with coronary artery disease, specifically high-risk heart attack patients.
