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.