UC Medical Center Receives Award for Care of Heart Failure Patients

CINCINNATI— University of Cincinnati Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®–Heart Failure Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.

This marks the third time that UC Medical Center has received a quality achievement award for its efforts to help heart failure patients. In 2011, the hospital received the Bronze Quality Achievement Award and in 2013 received the Silver 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.

UC Medical Center 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 proper use of medications and aggressive risk-reduction therapies such as beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics and anticoagulants while patients are in the hospital.

Before patients are discharged, they also receive education on managing their heart failure and overall health, as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation.

"UC Medical Center is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our heart failure patients, and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure program helps us accomplish this goal by tracking and measuring our success in meeting internationally respected guidelines,” said Stephanie Dunlap, DO, medical director of the UC Health Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Program and part of the UC Heart, Lung and Vascular Institute.

"This honor recognizes what we have long known about the superior quality of our care for heart failure patients and moves us one step closer to establishing a world-class advanced treatment and heart transplantation program at University of Cincinnati Medical Center,” said Richard Becker, MD, director of cardiovascular services at UC Health and director and physician-in-chief of the UC Heart, Lung and Vascular Institute.

"We are pleased to recognize University of Cincinnati Medical Center for its commitment to heart failure care,” said Deepak Bhatt, MD, national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and executive director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.

"Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce patients’ length of stays and 30-day readmission rates and also reduce disparity gaps in care,” said Bhatt, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

According to the American Heart Association, about 5.1 million people suffer from heart failure. Each year, 670,000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 275,000 people will die of heart failure. However, many heart failure patients can lead a full life when their condition is managed with proper medications and devices and with healthy lifestyle changes.

For more information or to schedule an appointment with the UC Health Advanced Heart Failure Treatment Center please call

513-584-7217

.