Overview

This resource room is built on well-proven principles of quality improvement, evidence-based medicine as well as personal and institutional experiences. An in depth look at your current workflow followed by a redesign in process, work flow, and information transfer and sharing is needed in order to implement effective team-based Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) care.

This Resource Room will enable you to implement effective regimens that optimize ACS management in your institution by providing you with information on:

You will also have access to:

• Education Resources
• Clinical Tools
• QI Basics
• Professional Development
• Exchange Information

Why Should You Act?

• Acute coronary syndrome is a major cause of morbidity and mortality that has a rich set of life saving management strategies if implemented effectively¹.
• Despite these available treatment options, many hospitals fall short of complying with basic recommendations in too many of their patients^2,3.
• Recognizing this gap, CMS has placed a high priority on ACS in its initial core measure set of hospital quality measures and its PQRI physician measures⁴.
• Quality improvement strategies can effectively improve performance on quality measures in the area of ACS⁴.

¹Antman EM, Anbe DT, Armstrong PW, et al. ACC/AHA guidelines for the management of patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction -- executive summary: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee to Revise the 1999 Guidelines on the Management of Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction). Circulation 2004 Aug 3;110(5):588-636. PMID: 15289388

²Jacobs AK, Antman EM, Ellrodt G, et al. Recommendation to develop strategies to increase the number of ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction patients with timely access to primary percutaneous coronary intervention. Circulation 2006;113:2152-2163. PMID: 16569790

³Williams SC, Schmaltz SP, Morton DJ, Koss RG, Loeb JM. Quality of care in U.S. hospitals as reflected by standardized measures. 2002-2004. N Engl J Med 2005;353:255-264. [Free Full Text]

⁴Bradley, H, Herrin, J, Wang, Y, et al. Strategies for Reducing the Door-to-Balloon Time in Acute Myocardial Infarction. 2006. N Engl J Med 2006 355:2308-2320.

Fundamental Principle for Acute Coronary Syndrome Care

Early identification strategies, early risk stratification, coordinated care between interventional cardiologists and other team members with a mind set that ED to DC needs to be efficiently coordinated care as time is of the essence, and that systems to achieve this coordinated care and to assure baseline quality measures are essential.