UVA heart failure program wins American Heart Association Quality Awards

The American Heart Association (AHA) has recognized UVA Health System’s heart failure program with two national quality awards for using treatment guidelines that speed recovery and reduce hospital readmissions for heart failure patients.

The UVA Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Center earned the 2015 Get With The Guidelines^®–Heart Failure Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award from the AHA and the American College of Cardiology Foundation, along being named to the AHA’s Target: Heart Failure Honor Roll.

“I’m proud of the work of our entire heart failure team, which strives to provide customized, high-quality care for each of our patients with heart failure,” said Nita Reigle, MSN, ACNP-BC CHFN, a nurse practitioner who specializes in caring for heart failure patients.

UVA’s heart failure team received the award for exceeding quality measures in several areas. Following these steps have been shown to improve patients’ survival rate and reduce complications from heart failure. They include providing:

• Device therapy, such as biventricular pacemakers and implantable defibrillators
• Appropriate medications, based on research, to improve patients’ quality of life and reduce their risk of death
• Treatment to prevent deep vein thrombosis
• Follow-up appointments within seven days of being released from the hospital
• Pneumonia and flu vaccinations
• Education to help patients manage their heart failure and reduce their chances of being readmitted to the hospital

UVA has a multidisciplinary team that specializes in heart failure and provides the full range of available treatment options for patients.

Care options include lifestyle and diet changes, medications and implantable devices to help patients manage their heart failure. UVA’s free Heart Health at Home program provides regular follow-up visits at home from a certified nursing assistant for patients recently released from the hospital who live within 60 miles of Charlottesville. For select patients, heart transplants may also be an option.