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Walnut Creek, Calif. (June 1, 2017) – John Muir Health’s medical centers in Concord and Walnut Creek recently earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® Heart Failure Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award. This award recognizes John Muir Health’s commitment and success in implementing a high standard of heart failure care for patients by ensuring they receive treatment that meets nationally accepted, evidence-based standards and recommendations. This award is one of the highest distinctions for heart care and treatment in the country.
Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure is a quality improvement program that helps hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, research-based standards with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. Launched in 2005, numerous published studies have demonstrated the program’s success in achieving patient outcome improvements, including reductions in 30-day readmissions. According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million adults in the United States suffer from heart failure, with the number expected to rise to eight million by 2030. Statistics show that each year about 870,000 new cases are diagnosed and about 50 percent of those diagnosed will die within five years. However, 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.
John Muir Health’s Walnut Creek and Concord medical centers earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure patients. These measures include evaluation of the patient, proper use of medications and aggressive risk-reduction therapies, such as ACE inhibitors/ARBs, beta-blockers, diuretics, anticoagulants, and other appropriate therapies. Before patients are discharged, they also receive education on managing their heart failure and overall health, get a follow-up visit scheduled, as well as other care transition interventions.
“It is an honor for John Muir Health to receive this award again, as it demonstrates our continuing commitment to providing patients with the highest-quality care and best practices for cardiac treatment,” said Neal White, M.D., cardiologist and Heart Failure Program Chairman at John Muir Health. "This recognition is a reflection of the hard work and dedication from our team of skilled physicians, nurses and staff to improve care for heart failure patients. We are helping patients continue to improve the quality of their lives and coordinating their care inside and outside of the hospital to help keep them as healthy as possible.”
The Get With The Guidelines tools enable John Muir Health’s medical centers to continuously improve the quality of care provided to heart patients, improve health outcomes, save lives and ultimately reduce health care costs by lowering recurrence of heart failure and heart attacks. To learn more about John Muir Health’s award-winning programs and services, including warning signs and treatment options for heart failure, please visit: www.johnmuirhealth.com.
About John Muir Health
John Muir Health is a nationally recognized, not-for-profit health care organization east of San Francisco serving patients in Contra Costa, eastern Alameda and southern Solano Counties. It includes a network of more than 1,000 primary care and specialty physicians, more than 6,500 employees, medical centers in Concord and Walnut Creek, including Contra Costa County’s only trauma center, and a Behavioral Health Center. John Muir Health also has partnerships with UCSF Health, Tenet Healthcare/San Ramon Regional Medical Center and Stanford Children's Health. The health system offers a full-range of medical services, including primary care, outpatient and imaging services, and is widely recognized as a leader in many specialties – neurosciences, orthopedic, cancer, cardiovascular, trauma, emergency, pediatrics and high-risk obstetrics care.
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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.
John Muir Health:
Ben Drew
John Muir Health
925-947-5387
Ben.Drew@johnmuirhealth.com
www.johnmuirhealth.com