VCU news

By Cassie Williams Jones

Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center is one of only 32 hospitals nationwide to receive the American College of Cardiology Foundation’s NCDR ACTION Registry–GWTG Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2013.

This award recognizes the commitment and success of the VCU Medical Center and VCU Pauley Heart Center in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients, and it signifies that they have reached an aggressive goal of treating these patients to standard levels of care as outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association’s clinical guidelines and recommendations.

“This award confirms the outstanding clinical care that patients receive at VCU Medical Center and puts us among an elite group of medical centers,” said Kenneth Ellenbogen, M.D., Hermes A. Kontos Professor of Medicine and chair of the Division of Cardiology at the VCU Pauley Heart Center. “Pauley Heart Center at VCU provides world-class cardiovascular services, and this significant designation affirms our role as leaders in cardiac care.”

To receive the ACTION Registry–GWTG Gold Performance Achievement Award, hospitals must consistently follow the treatment guidelines in ACTION Registry–GWTG for eight consecutive quarters and meet a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures.

“Despite significant improvements, coronary disease remains one of the most important causes of death in the U.S.,” said Michael Kontos, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine and director of the VCU Pauley Heart Center’s Coronary Intensive Care Unit. “With the aging population, the numbers of Americans requiring long-term treatment will only increase. Treatment after a heart attack is an important time of intervention, in which giving the right medications and treatment can substantially improve outcomes.”

ACTION Registry–GWTG is a partnership between the American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association with partnering support from the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care. ACTION Registry–GWTG empowers health care provider teams to consistently treat heart attack patients according to the most current, science-based guidelines and 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 STEMI and NSTEMI patients.