CARMEL – The highly-respected St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana has been recognized for achievement in using evidence-based guidelines to provide the best possible care to patients through The American Heart Association’s (AHA) Get With The Guidelines program.
The St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana earned the AHA's Gold Performance Achievement Award for Coronary Artery Disease for the second consecutive year by achieving at least 85 percent compliance with the Get With The Guidelines measures for 24 consecutive months.
"Our commitment to delivering the highest standard of cardiac care for patients and families has enabled us to receive this type of recognition from the AHA," said John Stewart, CEO of the St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana. "Our track record ensures that Indiana patients receive nationally-recognized care from a heart program that provides the best outcomes close to home."
Get With The Guidelines is a hospital-based quality-improvement program designed to ensure that hospitals consistently care for cardiac and stroke patients following the most up-to-date guidelines and recommendations. Currently more than 1,450 hospitals participate in the program.
St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana was also recently recognized as the first in the state to earn the Disease-Specific Care Certification for Heart Failure from The Joint Commission, the nation’s premier healthcare accreditation entity. The Disease-Specific Care Certification Program evaluates clinical programs and awards accreditation to health care organizations that demonstrate compliance with national standards and safety goals, evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, and performance measurement and improvement activities.
According to the AHA, approximately 565,000 people suffer a new heart attack and 300,000 experience a recurrent heart attack each year. Statistics also show that within one year of a heart attack, 18 percent of men and 23 percent of women will die. Within five years after an attack, about 33 percent of men and 43 percent of women will die.
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St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana
St.Vincent Heart Center of Indiana (SVHCI) is a joint venture between St.Vincent Health and the physicians and surgeons of The Care Group, LLC and CorVasc MD's P.C., and opened as the first freestanding heart hospital in the Indianapolis metro area in 2002. The 120-bed hospital specializes in interventional cardiology, cardiac catheterization, cardiac surgery, vascular medicine, thoracic procedures and transplants. SVHCI is home to the $99 Heart Scan of Indiana, 24/7 Heart Emergency Unit, the A-Fib Center of Excellence, the Congestive Heart Failure Center of Excellence, the Indiana Heart Attack Network and the Sleep Center of Indiana. The freestanding hospital is the only in the state to be named by HealthGrades as the best heart care in Indiana four years in a row and in the top 5 percent of all hospitals in the U.S. for overall cardiac services for 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. It is also a Thomson/Solucient Top 100 Hospital for Cardiovascular Services, and an Accredited Chest Pain Center.
