The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With the Guidelines quality improvement programme reached two milestones this month, touching the lives of more than five million patients, including more than three million people who had strokes. The programme has helped hospital teams with tools and resources to meet the latest research-based clinical guidelines for heart and stroke care.
“The incredible number of patients that have been treated in these programmes offer us a wealth of information that contributes to research, which ultimately helps to improve their care,” says Deepak L Bhatt, national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee, executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programmes at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
“Using this information, research studies have confirmed that there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines programme, and this accomplishment demonstrates the power of translating evidence-based care into user-friendly tools for healthcare providers,” he says.
The American Heart Association launched Get With The Guidelines in 2000 to help ensure the heart and stroke care patients receive is in line with the latest research-based guidelines. Studies show that consistent application of these programmes can lead to better recoveries and lower risks of ending up back in the hospital.
More than 2,200 hospitals participate in Get With The Guidelines, with at least one in every state in USA and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
