Mission News

Mission Hospital’s heart program has been recognized by The American College of Cardiology Foundation with a Silver Performance award for excellent care of heart attack patients. This “Get with the Guidelines” designation recognizes hospitals that have consistently provided heart attack patients with the treatments proven to save lives and provide the best possible recovery, clinical “best practices” developed by the College and the American Heart Association. These practices include aggressive use of medications like cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, and anticoagulants for patients experiencing a heart attack.

Mission is one of only 36 hospitals nationwide to receive this award for 2009.

“Receiving this award required that Mission meet the aggressive goal of treating coronary artery disease patients with greater than 85 percent compliance to rigorous standards of care,” said Karen Lemieux, Vice President of Heart Services for Mission Hospital. “It is another affirmation that Western North Carolina’s first responders, regional hospitals, hospital staff, emergency medicine physicians, and cardiologists have refined our system of care for heart attack patients.”

“We attempt to provide and continuously improve the care of both local and regional Western North Carolina heart attack patients in a manner that is compassionate, prompt, consistently in line with proven standards, and among the top programs in the United States” said cardiologist William Maddox, MD, physician leader of the Acute Coronary Syndrome team for Mission Hospital. “As one important example, the average time to get heart attack patients from the door of our emergency department into the cardiac catheterization lab and to then open the heart vessel is now 43 minutes, well below our local goal of 60 minutes and the nationally recommended target of 90 minutes.”

“The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association commend Mission Hospital for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said Christopher Cannon, MD, chair of the Get with the Guidelines Steering Committee of the National Cardiovascular Data Registry, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Receiving the Silver Performance Award is required before a hospital is eligible to be awarded the Gold Performance Award. Mission has already been named a Gold Performer in “Get with the Guidelines” for stroke care.