MOUNT PLEASANT, SC — East Cooper Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®–Heart Failure Gold Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The recognition signifies that East Cooper Medical Center has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients with 85 percent compliance for at least 24 months to core standard levels of care as outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.
Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides hospital staff with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to prevent future hospitalizations.
Under Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure, heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics and anticoagulants while in the hospital. They also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.
“East Cooper Medical Center is dedicated to making our care for heart failure patients among the best in the country and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure program will help us accomplish this goal by making it easier for our professionals to improve the long-term outcome for these patients,” said Janie Sinacore-Jaberg, Chief Executive Officer of East Cooper Medical Center.
Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure helps East Cooper Medical Center’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes. The program includes quality-improvement measures such as care maps, discharge protocols, standing orders and measurement tools. This quick and efficient use of guideline tools will enable East Cooper Medical Center to improve the quality of care it provides heart failure patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks.
According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million people suffer from heart failure. Statistics also show that, each year, 670,000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 277,000 people will die of heart failure.
About East Cooper Medical Center
East Cooper Medical Center, part of Tenet South Carolina, is a 130-bed acute care hospital located at 2000 Hospital Drive in Mount Pleasant. Previously located at 1200 Johnnie Dodds Blvd, East Cooper Medical Center has been providing healthcare to the East Cooper community since 1986. We provide a number of services including 24-hour emergency care, women’s and children’s services, diagnostic imaging and interventional services, orthopedics, sports medicine, pain care, adult and pediatric rehabilitation services, wound care services and surgical care, including nationally recognized spine surgery and breast reconstruction surgery. East Cooper Medical Center is accredited by The Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency.
About Get With The Guidelines
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that empowers healthcare teams to save lives and reduce healthcare costs by helping hospitals follow evidence-based guidelines and recommendations. For more information, visit heart.org/quality.