Adena Medical Center Receives Gold Performance Achievement Award from American College of Cardiology

Adena Medical Center has received the American College of Cardiology Foundation's ACTION Registry Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2009 ­ one of only 121 hospitals nationwide to do so. The award recognizes Adena's commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients.

The Registry tracks consistency with which health care provider teams achieve best practice standards for treating heart attack patients.  These standards are based on the most current, science-based guidelines, and establish a national standard for understanding and improving the quality, safety, and outcomes of care provided for heart attack patients.

To receive the ACTION Registry­Get With The Guidelines (GWTG) Gold Performance Achievement Award, Adena Medical Center consistently met the established treatment guidelines for 24 consecutive months.

"The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association commend Adena Medical Center for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols," said Christopher Cannon, MD, ACTION Registry­GWTG Steering Committee Chairperson and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Physician in the Cardiovascular Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "The full implementation of acute and secondary prevention guideline-recommended therapy is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of heart attack patients," added Gregg C. Fonarow, MD, Get With The GuidelinesSM Steering Committee Chairperson and Director of Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center.

The Gold Performance Achievement Award is something staff and physicians are excited about as Adena Medical Center strives to provide cardiac services that are among the best in the nation.

"Adena Medical Center has been focused and committed to improving the quality of cardiovascular care through the implementation of ACTION Registry­GWTG. The number of acute heart attack patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing incidence of heart disease and a large aging population," said Adena cardiologist John Young, MD.  "We at Adena are certainly committed to

providing the most advanced and up-to-date care possible for patients in our region and hope that news such as this recent achievement will build confidence in our communities that high quality heart care is provided to patients close to home."

In addition to the Gold Performance Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology, in 2009, Adena also received full Cycle II accreditation with PCI (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention) from the Society of Chest Pain Centers Accreditation Review Committee.  PCI is a catheter-based intervention in which a severely narrowed or blocked coronary (heart) artery is opened with a balloon to relieve the chest pain.  Often, a stent is put in the newly opened artery to prevent it from closing.

Through accreditation and the recent achievement from the American College of Cardiology, the Heart Center at Adena Medical Center has demonstrated its expertise and commitment to quality patient care by meeting or exceeding a wide set of stringent criteria for the delivery of cardiac services.

For more information about Adena Health System, log on to www.adena.org.