Brookwood Medical Center Implements American Heart Association’s

Get With the Guildelines Program

New initiative helps close treatment gap in secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease and primary prevention of stroke

Birmingham, AL…July 29, 2004 – Brookwood Medical Center announced it has received recognition from the American Heart Association as a Get With the Guidelines – Coronary Artery Disease hospital.  The recognition signifies that Brookwood is participating in the American Heart Association Get With the Guildelines program.  The quality improvement initiative is designed to reduce the risk of recurrent heart attacks by helping hospital staff follow proven evidence based guidelines and procedures while coronary patients are in their care.

Under the program, coronary patients are started on aggressive risk reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, aspirin, ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers in the hospital and receive smoking cessation and weight management counseling and referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.  These standards of care are outlined in the American Heart Association / American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for patients with coronary artery disease.

“The full implementation of secondary prevention guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives of coronary patients,” said Kenneth A. LaBresh, M.D., member of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee.  “The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is designed to help hospitals like Brookwood Medical Center implement appropriate evidenced based guidelines and protocols that will reduce the number of recurrent events and death in these patients.”

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. 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 patients’ risk of a second event is reduced and lives are saved.

“Brookwood Medical Center is dedicated to making our cardiac unit among the best in the country, and implementing the American Heart Association’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 cardiac patients,” said Garry Gause, chief executive officer for Brookwood.

Get With The Guidelines is designed to help Brookwood’s staff develop and implement a secondary prevention guidelines 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 Brookwood to improve the quality of care it provides cardiac patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks. 

The American Heart Association program, developed with support from an unrestricted educational grant from Merck & Co., Inc., is being implemented in hospitals around the country.  For more information on Get With The Guidelines, visit www.americanheart.org. and type in “Get With The Guidelines” into the search box.