New Initiative Helps Close Treatment Gap in
Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease
and Primary Prevention of Stroke
Recently recognized by the American Heart Association
(AHA) as a Get With The GuidelinesSM -
Coronary Artery Disease hospital, the Hospital
of the University
of Pennsylvania is now participating in this quality
improvement initiative designed to reduce the risk
of recurrent heart attacks through the implementation
of proven treatments and standards of care.
Under
the program, those with heart disease are started
on aggressive risk reduction therapies in the
hospital such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, aspirin,
ACE
inhibitors
and beta-blockers and receive smoking cessation and weight management counseling
and referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged. These standards
of care are outlined in the AHA/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention
guidelines for patients with coronary (heart) artery disease.
“The full implementation of secondary prevention guidelines is a critical
step in saving the lives of coronary patients,” says Gray Ellrodt, MD,
American Heart Association volunteer chairman for the national Get With The Guidelines
project. According to the American Heart Association, more than 450,000 people
suffer recurrent heart attacks each year. Statistics also show that within six
years after a heart attack, about 22 percent of men and 46 percent of women will
be disabled with heart failure and within one year of an attack, 25 percent of
men and 38 percent of women will die.
Research indicates that when patients are
discharged from the hospital on appropriate medications such as aspirin, beta-blockers,
ACE inhibitors and lipid-lowering medicines, a patient's risk of a second event is reduced and lives are saved.
“The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is dedicated to making
our cardiac unit among the best in the country, and implementing the AHA's Get
With The Guidelines program will help us accomplish this by making it easier
for our professionals to improve the long-term outcome for our patients with
heart disease,” says Daniel
Kolansky, MD, associate professor of medicine
and director of the Cardiac Care Unit at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Get With The Guidelines is designed to help the hospital's staff develop and implement
a secondary prevention guideline process. The program includes quality-improvement
measures such as care maps, discharge protocols, standing orders and measurement
tools. Designed to be quick and efficient, these guideline tools will enable
the hospital to improve the quality of care it provides to patients with heart
disease, save lives and ultimately, reduce health care costs by lowering the
recurrence of heart attacks.
For more information about Get With The Guidelines,
please visit the American
Heart Association's web site.
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