Twin Cities Community Hospital receives Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award

Oct. 30, 2012 - PRLog -- Twin Cities Community Hospital (http://www.twincitieshospital.com/) received the Get With The Guidelines®–Heart Failure Gold Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The recognition signifies that Twin Cities Community Hospital has reached an exceptional goal of treating heart failure patients in North San Luis Obispo County according to the guidelines of care recommended by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology.  
     This marks the fourth year that Twin Cities Community Hospital has been recognized with this quality achievement award.

     Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure helps Twin Cities Community Hospital’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes to improve patient care and outcomes. The program provides hospitals with a web-based patient management tool, best practice discharge protocols and standing orders, along with a robust registry and real-time benchmarking capabilities to track performance.

     The quick and efficient use of guideline procedures can improve the quality of care for heart failure patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks.  

     “Recent studies show that patients treated in hospitals participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure program receive a higher quality of care and may experience better outcomes,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. “Twin Cities Community Hospital team is to be commended for their commitment to improving the care of their patients.”

     Following Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure treatment guidelines, Twin Cities Community Hospital’s heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies if needed, including cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics and anticoagulants. Before discharge, they also receive education on managing their heart failure and overall health, including lifestyle modifications and follow-up care. Hospitals must adhere to these measures at a set level for a designated period of time to be eligible for the achievement awards.

     “We are very proud to win another year’s Get With The Guidelines award, a significant achievement which proves our dedication to making our care for heart failure patients among the best in the country,” says Twin Cities Community Hospital CEO Mark Lisa. “Maintaining this high level of compliance with the Heart Failure Quality measures for 2012 is the result of the diligent work of Quality Director Robert Cook, as well as that of all of our physicians, nurses, technicians and other staff.”

     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. However, many heart failure patients can lead a full, enjoyable life when their condition is managed with proper medications and devices and with healthy lifestyle changes.

ABOUT TWIN CITIES COMMUNITY HOSPITAL:

Twin Cities Community Hospital, part of Tenet Health Corporation, is a 122-bed acute care hospital at 1100 Las Tablas Road in Templeton.  Since opening in 1977, Twin Cities has provided personalized quality patient care as the cornerstone of its operating philosophy.  Twin Cities’ new patient tower, opened in fall 2007, provides 30 new private rooms for obstetrics, intensive and telemetry care patients, and 23 ER suites, including three trauma rooms.  

Twin Cities provides a broad range of medical, surgical and outpatient care.  Working closely with affiliated physicians, Twin Cities places special emphasis on clinical services important to local residents, including hip and knee replacement, surgical care, stroke intervention, emergency care and maternal child services.  Twin Cities and its sister facility Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center together employ more than 1,700 local residents, making Tenet the second largest private employer in San Luis Obispo County.  More than 115 active medical staff members practice at Twin Cities and 50 local residents volunteer at the hospital.  The hospital is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 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 (http://www.heart.org/quality).

For information about Twin Cities Community Hospital, please visit www.twincitieshospital.com or call Press Agency AR & Co. PR and Marketing at (805) 239-4443 or email pr@arandcompany.com.