Washington Adventist Hospital Earns Award for High-Quality Heart Care

Story by Betty Klinck

Adventist HealthCare's Washington Adventist Hospital (WAH) has received a national award for its high-quality care of heart attack patients—one of only 203 hospitals nationwide to receive the honor.

The American College of Cardiology’s NCDR ACTION Registry honored WAH with the 2018 Platinum Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients. 

More than 700,000 Americans have a heart attack annually. The Registry empowers healthcare providers to consistently treat heart attack patients according to the most current, science-based guidelines, and establishes a national standard for treating high-risk patients. The treatment guidelines include administering aspirin upon arrival and discharge, timely restoration of blood flow to the blocked artery, smoking cessation counseling and cardiac rehabilitation, among others.

To receive this distinction, WAH consistently followed the treatment guidelines in the Registry for eight consecutive quarters and has achieved the top level of performance in the program’s quality measures.

“We are pleased that Washington Adventist Hospital has received this prestigious award,” says Michael Chen, M.D., medical director of the Catheterization Lab at WAH. “It demonstrates our continued commitment to improving the quality and safety of care provided to heart attack patients.”

WAH is also accredited as a Chest Pain Center with PCI by the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care, an Institute of the American College of Cardiology, for the efficient and rapid treatment of heart attacks.