UCLA Medical Center receives platinum award for outstanding heart attack care

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has received an award for outstanding heart attack care from the American College of Cardiology Foundation called the NCDR ACTION Registry-GWTG Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2012.

UCLA is one of only 164 hospitals nationwide to receive the award that reflects an aggressive goal of treating heart attack patients to standard levels of care as outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association's clinical guidelines and recommendations.

To receive the award, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center consistently followed treatment guidelines outlined by the ACTION Registry-GWTG Premier program for eight consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures. Following these treatment guidelines improves adherence to clinical guideline recommendations, as well as monitors drug safety and the overall quality of care provided to heart attack patients.

"The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association commend Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center for its success in implementing these standards of care and protocols. 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," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, ACTION Registry-GWTG Steering Committee Chair and director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center and Dr. James Jollis, ACTION Registry-GWTG co-chair and professor of medicine and radiology at Duke University Hospital.

"The time is right for hospitals to be focused on improving the quality of cardiovascular care. The number of acute myocardial infarction patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to the increasing incidence of heart disease and a large aging population," said Fonarow, Eliot Corday Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science at UCLA.

Source: Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center