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Charleston VAMC receives resuscitation gold award

Charleston VAMC received the Get With The Guidelines®-Resuscitation Gold Award.
Charleston VAMC received the Get With The Guidelines®-Resuscitation Gold Award.
By Erin Curran

The Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®-Resuscitation Gold Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association for the treatment of patients who suffer cardiac arrests in the hospital.

More than 200,000 adults and children have an in-hospital cardiac arrest each year, according to the American Heart Association. The Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program was developed with the goal to save lives of those who experience in-hospital cardiac arrests through consistently following the most up-to-date research-based guidelines for treatment. Guidelines include following protocols for patient safety, medical emergency team response, effective and timely resuscitation (CPR) and post-resuscitation care.

Charleston VAMC received the award for meeting specific measures in treating adult in-hospital cardiac arrest patients. To qualify for the awards, hospitals must comply with the quality measures for two or more consecutive years. Last year Charleston VAMC received the Resuscitation Silver Award, and now with two consecutive years of meeting the specific criteria, they’ve achieved Gold.

“Our VA is dedicated to helping Veterans have the best possible outcome and that’s why we’ve implemented the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program,” said Ralph H. Johnson VAMC Director Scott Isaacks. “Being honored for giving excellent patient care is the best recognition a hospital can get.”

Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation builds on the work of the American Heart Association’s National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation originally launched in 1999 and has collected in-hospital cardiac arrest data from more than 500 hospitals. Data from the registry and the quality program give participating hospitals feedback on their resuscitation practice and patient outcomes. In addition, the data helps improve research-based guidelines for in-hospital resuscitation.