Canonsburg General Hospital Receives American Heart Association Award

has received the Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure Bronze Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association.

The recognition signifies that Canonsburg General Hospital has reached a goal of treating heart failure patients for at least 90 days with 85 percent compliance to core standard levels of care 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.

According to Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure treatment guidelines, heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics, and anticoagulants in the hospital. They also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.

“Canonsburg General Hospital 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 by making it easier for our professionals to improve the long-term outcome for these patients,” said Terry Wiltrout, president and chief executive officer of Canonsburg General Hospital.

Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure helps Canonsburg General Hospital’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 will enable Canonsburg General Hospital 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 a statement. 

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.