John Muir in Walnut Creek & Concord Earns Elite Heart Association Awards

John Muir Health’s Concord and Walnut Creek medical centers recently earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® Heart Failure Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award. 

In addition, the Concord medical center was awarded the American Heart Association's Mission: Lifeline® Receiving Center Gold-Plus Recognition Award as a STEMI (heart attack) Receiving Center. 

Get With The Guidelines® – Heart Failure is a quality improvement program that helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines for care with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. 

This is John Muir Health’s fourth consecutive year winning the Get With The Guidelines® quality achievement award. 

To achieve Gold-Plus recognition, hospitals must reach a high benchmark goal of treating heart failure patients with 85 percent or better compliance to specific levels of care outlined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for 24 consecutive months. 

The Concord and Walnut Creek medical centers also reached 75 percent or higher compliance with five or more Get With The Guidelines® Heart Failure Quality measures, which evaluate the quality of patient care. 

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 600,000 people die annually of heart disease in the United States. 

“It is an honor for John Muir Health to receive this award again, as it demonstrates our commitment to providing patients with high-quality care that adheres to extensively researched guidelines and best practices for cardiac treatment,” said Neal White, M.D., cardiologist and Heart Failure Program Chairman at John Muir Health. 

The Concord medical center was also awarded the AHA Mission: Lifeline® Receiving Center Gold-Plus Recognition Award for improving the quality of care for patients suffering severe heart attacks, also known as a STEMI (ST-elevation myocardial infarction). 

Each year in the United States, approximately 250,000 people have a STEMI, caused by a complete blockage of blood flow to the heart that requires timely treatment. 

John Muir Medical Center, Concord, earned the award by meeting specific criteria and standards of performance for the quick and appropriate treatment of STEMI patients to open the blocked artery. 

Before patients are discharged, they are started on aggressive risk reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, aspirin, ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers, and they receive smoking cessation counseling if needed. 

“Patients having a heart attack who are treated at John Muir Health can expect care that is timely and consistent with the latest guidelines from the American Heart Association,” said   Howard Min, M.D., cardiologist and Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Medical Director for John Muir Health’s Concord Medical Center. 

“Our team of skilled physicians, nurses and staff improve care for heart attack patients at the hospital and upon discharge. We are helping patients make positive lifestyle changes that significantly impact their lives." 

The Get With The Guidelines® tools enable John Muir Health’s medical centers to continuously improve the quality of care provided to heart patients, improve health outcomes, save lives and ultimately reduce health care costs by lowering recurrence of heart failure and heart attacks. 

To learn more about John Muir Health’s award-winning programs and services, including warning signs and treatment options for stroke and heart failure, please visit: www.johnmuirhealth.com.