Pekin Hospital Participates in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure Program

Pekin Hospital is participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines®–Heart Failure program.  The program provides hospital staff with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to prevent future hospitalizations.

Under the 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 while in the hospital.  They also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.  These standards of care are outlined in the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for patients with heart failure.

“The full implementation of national heart failure guideline recommended care is a critical step in preventing recurrent hospitalizations and prolonging the lives of heart failure patients,” said Lee Schwamm, M.D., National Chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Vice Chairman of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital.  “The goal of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is to help hospitals like Pekin Hospital implement appropriate evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and the number of deaths in these patients.  Published scientific studies are providing us with more and more evidence that Get With The Guidelines works. Patients are getting the right care they need when they need it.  That’s resulting in improved survival.”

“Pekin 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 Kevin Andrews, Pekin Hospital CEO.

Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure helps Pekin 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 quick and efficient use of guideline tools will enable Pekin 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 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.