St. Mary's Hospital has received the Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation Gold Award for implementing evidence-based quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association for the treatment of patients who suffer a cardiac arrest 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 of saving 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, the flagship hospital of St. Mary's Health Care System, 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 outcomes," said Montez Carter, St. Mary's President and CEO. "Implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program helps us accomplish this by making it easier for our teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis. Receiving the gold award two years in a row demonstrates our ongoing commitment to providing the best, evidence-based care possible for our patients.”

“We are pleased to recognize St. Mary's for their commitment to following these guidelines,” said Eric E. Smith, M.D., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and an associate professor of neurology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. “Shortening the time to effective resuscitation and maximizing post-resuscitation care is critical to patient survival.”

Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation builds on the work of the American Heart Association’s National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation originally launched in 1999. The program 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 help improve research-based guidelines for in-hospital resuscitation.