For Five Straight Years, St. Vincent Earns Platinum Achievement Award for Heart Attack Treatment
St. Vincent Healthcare, now part of Intermountain Health, has received the American College of Cardiology’s NCDR Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2023, making five consecutive years it has earned the award.
By receiving this award, St. Vincent has demonstrated a continued commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients and sustained achievement in the Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry, performing at the highest level for specific measures. Full participation in the registry engages hospitals in a robust quality improvement process using data to drive improvements in adherence to recommendations and overall quality of care for heart attack patients. This places St. Vincent as one of only 262 hospitals nationwide to receive the honor.
“At St. Vincent, we are dedicated to helping the people in our communities live the healthiest lives possible. By earning this award for five consecutive years, our heart care team has demonstrated our long-standing commitment to providing high-quality, life-saving care when our community needs it most,” said Jen Alderfer, president of St. Vincent Healthcare & Montana | Wyoming Market. “The award celebrates the remarkable teamwork between local dispatch, EMS providers and our Emergency Department, cardiologists, cath lab staff, and nursing staff who strive to exceed expectations for quickly and efficiently assessing and caring for patients who require immediate treatment for cardiac emergencies.”
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that almost 800,000 Americans yearly suffer a heart attack. A heart attack occurs when a blood clot in a coronary artery partially or completely blocks blood flow to the heart muscle. Treatment guidelines include administering aspirin upon arrival and discharge, timely restoration of blood flow to the blocked artery, smoking cessation counseling, and cardiac rehabilitation, among others.
“It is an honor to award St. Vincent with the Platinum Performance Award for their valuable national leadership and dedication to meeting comprehensive performance measures in patient care,” said Michael C. Kontos, MD, FACC, chair of the NCDR Chest Pain – MI Registry Steering Subcommittee, and cardiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. “The receipt of this award indicates that St. Vincent remains committed to providing top quality, guideline-driven care for heart attack patients. Their success ensures patients are receiving the highest quality cardiovascular care.”
St. James Healthcare in Butte, a fellow Intermountain Health hospital in Montana, has also earned Platinum-level recognition for three years in a row. Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry empowers healthcare provider teams to consistently treat heart attack patients according to the most current, science-based guidelines. It establishes a national standard for understanding and improving the quality, safety, and outcomes of care provided for patients with coronary artery disease, specifically high-risk heart attack patients.