St. Mary's Hospital 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 and post-resuscitation care.

St. Mary's 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.

"St. Mary's is dedicated to helping our patients have the best possible outcome," said Montez Carter, President of St. Mary's Hospital. "Implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program will help us accomplish this by making it easier for our teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis."

“We are pleased to recognize St. Mary's for their commitment to following these guidelines,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Shortening the time to effective resuscitation and maximizing post-resuscitation care is critical to patient survival.”