Berkshire Medical Center Honored With American Heart Assoc. Award

PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Medical Center is one of two hospitals in the nation to be awarded the ‘Get with the Guidelines Performance Achievement Award’ from the American Heart Assoc. (AHA).
The AHA program is designed to increase the use of and adherence to the association’s secondary prevention guidelines for coronary vascular disease. Gray Ellrodt, MD, chairman of Medicine at BMC, was presented with the prestigious award at the Get with the Guidelines Breakfast of Champions ceremony held in conjunction with the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2001 in Anaheim, Calif.

In addition to BMC, UCLA Medical Center was also honored at the ceremony.

Prior to the national recognition, BMC was the first hospital in New England to achieve a platinum designation from the AHA New England affiliate for the Get with the Guidelines pilot program.

The program requires that a hospital document improvement to meet or exceed benchmarks in five core indicators for secondary prevention for coronary vascular disease: smoking cessation, lipid lowering drugs, aspirin, Beta-blockers, and ACE inhibitors.

In order to be considered for a performance achievement award, a hospital’s data must indicate achievement compliance of the five performance criteria in at least 85{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of patients. BMC has documented compliance of the criteria in 100{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of patients in all five areas.

“This achievement could not have been attained without the full commitment of our physicians, including our cardiologists, house staff, nursing staff, and care managers,” said Ellrodt. “Our goal was always more than improvement; it was perfection — 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} is good, but 100{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} is clearly our goal.”