Mercy Named National Mentor Hospital for Heart Attack Patient Care
Mercy Medical Center, 701 10th St. SE, was designated a national mentor hospital for heart attack patient care on March 19 by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of health care.
This honor comes in recognition of several initiatives which lead to a dramatic 82-percent reduction in heart attack mortality rates from 2004 to 2006 at Mercy.
In addition, top-notch team work between cardiologists, emergency department physicians and staff, administration, paramedics, nurses, cath lab staff and EKG staff resulted in major improvements at Mercy in the time from the arrival of a possible heart attack patient to the time when the patient’s blockage in a coronary artery is opened. This time decreased from an average of 105 minutes to 69 minutes in 2006. On the weekends, the average time was 88.5 minutes, well below the 120 minute national benchmark.
Mercy is one of only 28 hospitals nationwide in the IHI’s 5 Million Lives Campaign Mentor Hospital Network for improving heart attack care. The goal of the 5 Million Lives is to prevent harm to 5 million people lives in the U.S. from December 2006 to December 2008.
As a mentor, Mercy will provide support, advice, clinical expertise and tips to other hospitals around the nation seeking help with their implementation efforts in improving team-based heart attack patient care.
Another innovative Mercy concept is the development of the “ABCD’s of Care,” a quick and easy way for nurses and physicians to simplify national standards of care for heart attack patients. These include:
- Aspirin on admission and discharge;
- Beta-blockers (medication for heart conditions) on admission and discharge;
- Cholesterol assessment and treatment;
- Dysphagia (swallowing difficulty) screening on admission;
- Smoking cessation education.
The mentor program connects hospitals that want to improve performance in a specific area with role-model hospitals with proven expertise and success in that area.
The list of hospital mentors is found on the IHI website at http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Programs/Campaign. Mercy’s mentor information is under the subheading, “Improve Care for Acute Myocardial Infarction.”
