McCOMB – Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center’s Mississippi Heart Institute has received the American College of Cardiology Foundation’s NCDR ACTION Registry-GWTG Silver Performance Achievement Award for 2013 and is one of only 130 hospitals nationwide to do so.

The award recognizes Southwest Regional’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients, and signifies that Southwest Regional has reached an aggressive goal of treating these patients to standard levels of care as outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association clinical guidelines and recommendations, according to a press release from Southwest Regional.

To receive the ACTION Registry-GWTG Silver Performance Achievement Award, Southwest Regional consistently followed the treatment guidelines in ACTION Registry-GWTG for four consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures.

Following these treatment guidelines improves adherence to ACC/AHA Clinical Guideline recommendations, monitors drug safety and the overall quality of care provided to ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and

non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients (NSTEMI).

“The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association commend Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols, said James Jollis, MD, FACC, ACTION Registry-GWTG chair and professor of medicine and radiology at Duke University Hospital and Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA, ACTION Registry-GWTG co-chair and chief of cardiology at VA Boston Healthcare System, senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

“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,” he continued.

“The time is right for Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center to be focused on improving the quality of cardiovascular care by implementing ACTION Registry-GWTG,” said Tina Brumfield, director of Public Relations and Marketing at Southwest Regional.

“The number of acute myocardial infarction patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing incidence of heart disease and a large aging population,” she added.

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.