Submitted by Mercy.

Mercy Health – Anderson, Clermont, Fairfield and West Hospitals have received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

The award recognizes the hospitals’ 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 to speed recovery and reduce hospital readmissions for heart failure patients.

The AHA also placed Mercy Health – Anderson, Fairfield and West Hospitals on the Target: Heart Failure Honor Roll, which requires that hospitals meet specific criteria that improves medication adherence, provides early follow-up care and coordination and enhances patient education. The goal is to improve the quality of life of patients managing this chronic condition.

Mercy Health’s hospitals earned the recognitions 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.

“Heart failure is a notoriously difficult condition to manage and we partner with our patients to help them not just live but thrive with this condition,” Dave Fikse, President, Mercy Health – Cincinnati, said. “Mercy Health is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our patients with heart failure and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-HF initiative has given us tools and resources to help us track and measure our success in meeting evidenced-based clinical guidelines that improve patient outcomes.”

“We are pleased to recognize Mercy Health – Cincinnati for its commitment to heart failure care,” 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, said. “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.