Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Centennial receives Get With The Guidelines Heart Failure Gold Plus Award

(FRISCO, TX — July 18, 2017) Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Centennial has received the Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures and secondary prevention guidelines outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation guidelines for patients with heart failure.

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.

“Baylor Scott & White – Centennial is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our heart failure patients,” said Jay Krishnaswamy, chief executive officer of Baylor Scott & White – Centennial. “Implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure program helps us to accomplish this goal by tracking and measuring our success in meeting internationally respected guidelines.”

Baylor Scott & White – Centennial 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 and anticoagulants. 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.

“We are pleased to recognize Baylor Scott & White – Centennial for its commitment to heart failure care,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines program. Get With the Guidelines research has demonstrated the impact of lowering 30-day readmissions and reducing mortality rates.”