Augusta Health has received the Get With The Guidelines®–Resuscitation Silver Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association for the treatment of patients who experience cardiac arrests in the hospital.
The Get with the Guidelines-Resuscitation program was developed with the goal to save lives of those who experience cardiac arrests through consistently following the most up-to-date research-based guidelines for treatment. Guidelines include following protocols for patient safety, medical emergency team response, effective and timely resuscitation (CPR) and post-emergency care.
More than 200,000 adults and children have an in-hospital cardiac arrest each year, according to the American Heart Association.
Specifically, Augusta Health is awarded for meeting specific measures in treating Adult cardiac arrest patients. To qualify for the awards, hospitals must demonstrate compliance with these performance measures at a set level for a designated period.
“Augusta Health is dedicated to helping our patients have the best possible outcome and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get with the Guidelines–Resuscitation program will help us accomplish this by making it easier for our teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis,” said Robert L. McWhirt, DNP.
“We are pleased to recognize Augusta Health for their commitment in following these guidelines,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get with the Guidelines steering committee and Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Shortening the time to effective resuscitation and maximizing post-resuscitation care is critical to patient survival.”
Get with the Guidelines-Resuscitation builds on the work of the American Heart Association’s National Registry of CardioPulmonary Resuscitation, originally launched in 1999 as a database of in-hospital resuscitation events from more than 500 hospitals. The data from the registry and the quality program gives participating hospitals feedback on their resuscitation practice and patient outcomes and help develop research-based guidelines for in-hospital resuscitation.
Augusta Health is an independent, nonprofit community hospital whose mission is to promote the health and well-being of our community through access to excellent care. Named one of the 100 Top Hospitals in America by Thomson Reuters in both 2011 and 2012, Augusta Health has also been nationally recognized by HealthGrades as one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for clinical excellence and patient safety. For more information about Augusta Health, its programs or its services, please contact public relations at 540.245.7329 or 540.221.7329, or visit our website, www.augustahealth.com.
About Get with the Guidelines
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 4 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org/quality or heart.org/myhealthcare.