BWH Recognized as Top Performer in Key Cardiac Benchmarks
The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), an alliance of the clinical enterprises of 88 academic health centers that supports clinical benchmarking and sharing of best practices across member institutions, recently ranked BWH number one in the area of congestive heart failure (CHF) performance and second in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) performance.
Mary Lou Moore, RN and Carol Flavell, RNP joined Lynne Warner Stevenson, MD in presenting BWH’s success story at a Jan. 29 Knowledge Transfer meeting for academic health centers.
BWH clinicians instill a shared commitment to heart failure, integrating care at all levels in and out of the hospital. Specially trained heart failure nurses and dedicated faculty join together to tailor therapy, achieving individualized goals for each heart failure patient. The inpatient care links closely with the outpatient Cardiomyopathy Clinic, and patients participate actively in their own progress. Sustained relief of symptoms, prevention of complications, and enhancement of activity are the highest priorities. Having first access to the developing technologies such as resynchronization pacing and cardiac assist devices helps to ensure that the best therapy can be selected for each patient.
BWH efforts to coordinate acute myocardial infarction care at BWH among the Department of Emergency Medicine, the catheterization laboratory, and the cardiac care units have been crucial to such success.
This team approach routinely achieves “door to balloon” times that are far superior to national standards. New rapid cath lab response systems implemented over the past year often allow AMI patients to be treated in half the time reported at other major medical academic centers.