News

Southeast Hospital has received the American College of Cardiology's NCDR Chest Pain – MI Registry Platinum Performance Award for 2020. This is the ninth consecutive year that Southeast has been singled out as a top performing hospital for heart care. It is one of only 140 hospitals nationwide to receive the honor.

The award recognizes Southeast's commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients and signifies that the hospital has reached an aggressive goal of treating these patients at standard levels of care as specified by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines and recommendations.

To receive Chest Pain – MI Registry Platinum Performance Achievement Award, Southeast Hospital has demonstrated a sustained achievement in the Chest Pain – MI Registry for two consecutive years (2018 and 2019), and performed at the highest level for specific performance measures. Full participation in the registry engages hospitals in a robust quality improvement process using data to drive improvements in adherence to guideline recommendations and overall quality of care provided to heart attack patients.

"As a Platinum Performance Award recipient, Southeast Hospital has established itself as a leader in setting the national standard for improving quality of care in patients with acute myocardial infarction," said Michael C. Kontos, MD, FACC, chair of the NCDR Chest Pain – MI Registry Steering Subcommittee, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. "By meeting the award requirements set forth in the registry, Southeast Hospital has demonstrated a commitment to providing reliable, comprehensive treatment for heart attack patients based on current clinical guideline recommendations."

The Centers for Disease Control estimate that over 700,000 Americans suffer a heart attack each year. Treatment guidelines, all of which are in place at Southeast Hospital, include administering aspirin upon arrival and discharge, timely restoration of blood flow to the blocked artery, smoking cessation counseling and cardiac rehabilitation, among others.

"To be a recipient of this award for nine consecutive years speaks to the consistency in care protocols and the keen focus from the entire heart team to deliver excellence in patient outcomes," said Matt Janzow, Chief Medical Officer of SoutheastHEALTH. "Quality is the foundation of care we deliver at Southeast. This award affirms to residents in this region that their heart is in the right place when suffering from a heart attack."

He noted that in addition to providing evidence-based care to heart attack patients, Southeast is also committed to investing in new technologies and facilities that result in improved safety and better outcomes for these, and all, heart patients. These investments have included a new, hybrid operating suite with technology to advance treatment options for critically ill heart patients, a new Heart and Vascular Pavilion designed for patient and family comfort and introducing to the region transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a minimally invasive approach to replacement of a narrowed aortic valve, and transcatheter MitraClip repair procedure which allows mitral regurgitation patients to be treated without invasive open heart surgery.

Chest Pain – MI Registry empowers healthcare 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 heart attack patients.