Mercy Medical Center receives Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award 2020

Mercy Medical Center has received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to ensuring heart failure patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines founded in the latest scientific evidence. The goal is speeding recovery and reducing hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. 

Mercy 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 proper use of medications and aggressive risk-reduction therapies. Before discharge, patients should also receive education on managing their heart failure and overall health, get a follow-up visit scheduled, as well as other care transition interventions.

“As the first hospital in Ohio and second in the nation to be named an accredited Heart Failure Institute by the Healthcare Accreditation Colloquium, Mercy is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our patients with heart failure by implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-HF initiative. This significant accreditation recognizes the fact that our team is proficient in managing the disease – our care plan emphasizes both quantity and quality of life for our heart failure patients,” said Ahmed Sabe, M.D., president of Mercy Heart Hospital. “Mercy Heart Center is very proud to have a 30-day readmission rate of only 11% for heart failure patients, much lower than the national average of 22%. Keeping our heart failure patients healthy and out of the hospital is of the utmost importance to us.”

Mercy has met the criteria for the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Honor Roll for nine consecutive quarters and participates in many innovative, proactive heart failure initiatives, including remote heart failure monitoring, the Dance for Life exercise pilot program and rapid 24/7 access to clinical data for heart failure patients. These initiatives recognize Mercy’s commitment to caring for the heart failure patient.

Mercy is also recognized on the association’s Target: Heart Failure Honor Roll. Hospitals are required to meet specific criteria that improves medication adherence, provides early follow-up care and coordination and enhances patient education. The goal is to reduce hospital readmissions and help patients improve their quality of life in managing this chronic condition.

Mercy Medical Center additionally received the Association’s Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll award. To qualify for this recognition, hospitals must meet quality measures developed with more than 90% of compliance for 12 consecutive months for the “Overall Diabetes Cardiovascular Initiative Composite Score.”

“We are pleased to recognize Mercy Medical Center for its commitment to heart failure care,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., national chairperson of the Quality Oversight Committee and Executive Vice Chair of Neurology, Director of Acute Stroke Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”

According to the American Heart Association, more than 6.5 million adults in the United States are living with heart failure. Many heart failure patients can lead a full, enjoyable life when their condition is managed with proper medications or devices and with healthy lifestyle changes.

About Mercy Heart Center
Mercy Medical Center has a history of pioneering excellence in heart care. Nationally recognized as a heart care leader, the impressive lists of “Firsts” include the world’s first angioplasty performed in an emergency department, the nation’s first Accredited Chest Pain Center and Stark County’s first Chest Pain Center certified to perform angioplasty 24/7. Mercy Emergency Chest Pain Center is home to a Cardiac Catheterization Lab located right in the Emergency Department where door-to-balloon angioplasty has been performed in as little as five minutes. This cath lab allows Mercy to dramatically reduce the time between heart attack and life-saving angioplasty. Mercy has received the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline® Gold Level Award six consecutive times since 2012, including four GOLD PLUS awards; has been recognized with the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology’s Get With The Guidelines - Heart Failure Achievement Award four consecutive years running; has been named a Top 50 Heart Hospital in the US for six years by Truven Health Analytics; has earned the American College of Cardiology Foundation’s PLATINUM PERFORMANCE Award four times; and currently holds both heart failure and chest pain center accreditations from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Accreditation Services. Mercy Heart Center was also the first in Ohio, second in the nation to be named an accredited Heart Failure Institute by the Healthcare Accreditation Colloquium and is home to Ohio’s first accredited cardiac cath lab.