West Jefferson Recognized with Gold Award for Heart Failure Care

West Jefferson Medical Center (WJMC) has received the Get With The Guidelines® -Heart Failure Gold Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation’s secondary prevention guidelines for patients with heart failure.

This marks the 10th year that West Jefferson has been recognized with a quality achievement award.

Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure is a quality improvement program that helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. Launched in 2005, numerous published studies have demonstrated the program’s success in achieving patient outcome improvements, including reductions in 30-day readmissions.

West Jefferson earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure patients at a set level for a designated period. These measures include evaluation of the patient, proper use of medications and aggressive risk-reduction therapies. These would include ACE inhibitors/ARBs, beta-blockers, diuretics, anticoagulants and other appropriate therapies. Before patients are discharged, they also receive education on managing their heart failure and overall health, get a followup visit scheduled, as well as other care transition interventions.

“West Jefferson is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our heart failure patients,” said Nancy R. Cassagne, President and CEO of West Jefferson Medical Center. “Implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure program, helps us to accomplish this goal by tracking and measuring our success in meeting internationally-respected guidelines.”

“We are pleased to recognize West Jefferson for their commitment to heart failure care,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines program. Get With the Guidelines research has demonstrated the impact of lowering 30-day readmissions and reducing mortality rates.”

According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million adults in the United States suffer from heart failure, with the number expected to rise to eight million by 2030. Statistics show that each year about 870,000 new cases are diagnosed and about 50 percent of those diagnosed will die within five years. However, many heart failure patients can lead a full, enjoyable life when their condition is managed with proper medications or devices and with healthy lifestyle changes.