RCH Recognized by AHA

Redlands Community Hospital Recognized by the American Heart
Association’s Get With The Guidelines^SM program

New initiative helps close treatment gap in secondary prevention
of cardiovascular disease and primary prevention of stroke

REDLANDS, CA - Redlands Community Hospital (RCH) announced it has received recognition from the American Heart Association as a Get With The Guidelines^SM - Coronary Artery Disease hospital. The recognition signifies that RCH is participating in the American Heart Association Get With The Guidelines^SM program. The quality improvement initiative is designed to reduce the risk of recurrent heart attacks by helping hospital staff follow proven standards and procedures while coronary patients are in their care.

In San Bernardino County from 1990 to 1999, there were 205,294 hospitalizations and a total of 41,365 deaths attributed to major cardiovascular diseases, according to a report released by the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health in June 2002.

Under the Get With The Guidelines^SM program, coronary patients at Redlands Community Hospital are started on aggressive risk reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, aspirin, ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers and receive smoking cessation and weight management counseling and referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged. These standards of care are outlined in the American Heart Association / American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for patients with coronary artery disease.

Get With The Guidelines^SM is designed to help Redlands Community Hospital’s staff develop and implement a secondary prevention guideline process. The program includes quality-improvement measures such as care maps, discharge protocols, standing orders and measurement tools. Designed to be quick and efficient, these guideline tools will enable RCH to improve the quality of care it provides cardiac patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks. Projections have shown that if the Get With The Guidelines^SM program was implemented nationwide, more than 80,000 lives could be saved each year.

"The full implementation of secondary prevention guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives of coronary patients," said Lynn Smaha, M.D., Ph.D., American Heart Association volunteer chairman for the national Get With The Guidelines^SM project. "The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines^SM program is designed to help hospitals like RCH implement appropriate standards of care and protocols that will reduce the number of recurrent events and death in these patients."

According to the American Heart Association, more than 450,000 people suffer recurrent heart attacks each year. Statistics also show that within six years after a heart attack, about 22 percent of men and 46 percent of women will be disabled with heart failure. Within one year of an attack, 25 percent of men and 38 percent of women will die.

Research indicates that when patients are discharged from the hospital on appropriate medications such as aspirin, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors and lipid-lowering medicines, a patient’s risk of a second event is reduced and lives are saved.

"Redlands Community Hospital is dedicated to making the care of our cardiac patients among the best in the country, and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines^SM program will help us accomplish this by making it easier for our professionals to improve the long-term outcome for our cardiac patients," said Coleen Thompson, RN, Clinical Projects Coordinator.

The American Heart Association program, developed with support from an unrestricted educational grant from Merck & Co., Inc., is being implemented in hospitals around the country. For more information on Get With The Guidelines^SM, visit www.americanheart.org and type "Get With The Guidelines" in the search box.

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