Adventist Hospitals Earn National Recognition for Cardiac Care

Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Md., and Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Md., both part of the Adventist HealthCare system., are among a select few hospitals in the country being recognized for providing the highest quality care to heart attack patients by the American College of Cardiology Foundation’s NCDR ACTION Registry®-Get With the Guidelines™ (GWTG).

Shady Grove Adventist Hospital earned the 2013 Gold Performance Achievement Award, which means it consistently followed treatment guidelines for eight consecutive quarters to meet a performance standard of 90 percent or better for specific measures. This includes how rapidly a patient receives treatment on arrival, medication use and patient education on discharge. It is the fourth straight year Shady Grove has been named a Gold Award winner.

“This Performance Achievement Award is tangible evidence of our cardiac and emergency care teams’ hard work and commitment to saving the lives of heart attack patients,” said John Sackett, president of Shady Grove Adventist Hospital. “This is important for today and the future, because research shows us that as the aging population increases, so will the incidence of heart disease.”

Washington Adventist Hospital received the 2013 Silver Performance Achievement Award. The hospital had to maintain a performance standard of 90 percent or better on specific measures for four consecutive quarters to earn this award.

“As a regional leader, providing more than 50 years of expert cardiac care to our communities, we are honored to be recognized by the American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association,” said Joyce Newmyer, president of Washington Adventist Hospital. “By following their clinical guidelines recommendations, we can ensure we are providing the highest quality of care to heart attack patients.”

The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association commend the two Adventist HealthCare hospitals for meeting national quality care standards, calling it “a critical step in saving the lives and improving the outcomes of heart attack patients,” according to James Jollis, MD, FACC, ACTION Registry-GWTG chair and professor of Medicine and Radiology at Duke University Hospital, and Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA, ACTION Registry-GWTG co-chair and chief of Cardiology at VA Boston Healthcare System, Senior Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Earlier this year, Washington Adventist Hospital became the first in Maryland to achieve accreditation as a Cycle IV Chest Pain Center with PCI (percutaneous coronary intervention, or angioplasty) from the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care (SCPC), which emphasizes the importance of standardized diagnostic and treatment programs used in the treatment of patients with chest pain and other heart attack symptoms. Washington Adventist also holds a Three-Star rating for heart surgery, the highest possible quality rating in this category by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). Shady Grove Adventist Hospital is accredited as a Cycle III Chest Pain Center with PCI from the SCPC. Both Shady Grove and Washington Adventist are designated Cardiac Intervention Centers and Primary Stroke Centers, and have earned the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline Performance Achievement Award and Stroke Quality Achievement Award.

Shady Grove Adventist and Washington Adventist Hospitals received their NCDR ACTION Registry®-GWTG™ awards Nov. 16-17 at the American Heart Association’s Quality Achievement Awards during its Scientific Sessions 2013 in Dallas, Texas.