Health
- Last Updated on Sunday, 29 October 2017 16:04
Monongahela Valley Hospital (MVH) has received the Get With The Guidelines®— Heart Failure Silver Plus 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.
MVH Heart Award |
This marks the first year that Monongahela Valley Hospital has been recognized with this 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.
MVH 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 anyone is discharged, they also receive education on managing their heart failure and overall health; have a follow-up visit scheduled, as well as other transition interventions.
“Monongahela Valley Hospital 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 to accomplish this goal by tracking and measuring our success in meeting internationally respected guidelines,” said Mary Lou Murt, MVH’s senior vice president of Nursing.
Pictured at right: Front row (l. to r.) are Kelly Macheska, American Heart Association; ; Dana Green, RN, 3-PCU; Jason Mull, RN, nurse manager, 3-PCU; Gina Hrach, director Quality and Systems Improvement, American Heart Association/ American Stroke Association; Kristen Pergola, data quality manager, Utilization Review. In the back row (l. to r.) are Becky Kahl, data quality abstractor, Utilization Review; Lynda Nester, RN, director, Community Care Network; Kevin Claybaugh, RN, Cardiac Care Unit; Sherry Watkins, RN, assistant vice president, Nursing; and Jeff Bomba, RN, nurse manager, ICU.