SGMC CEO Randy Sauls, AHA Regional Director Jeneane Nuzzo, Director of Pulmonary Services Mickey Whatley, SGMC affiliated cardiologist G. Sidney Staton, MD, Associate Nursing Administrator of Quality Compliance/Operations Stephen Shirlock, Director of Pharmaceutical Services Cindy Vickery and Administrative Director of Cardiovascular Services Laura Fiveash accept the Get With The Guidelines®–Resuscitation Gold Quality Achievement Award at a press conference Tuesday. Valdosta, GA,– SGMC has received the Get With The Guidelines®–Resuscitation Gold Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association for the treatment of patients who suffer cardiac arrests in the hospital.The Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program was developed with the goal to save lives of those who experience cardiac arrests through consistently following the most up-to-date research-based guidelines for treatment. Guidelines include following protocols for patient safety, medical emergency team response, effective and timely resuscitation (CPR) and post-emergency care.More than 200,000 adults and children have an in-hospital cardiac arrest each year, according to the American Heart Association.Specifically, South Georgia Medical Center is awarded for meeting specific measures in treating adult cardiac arrest patients. To qualify for the awards, hospitals must demonstrate compliance with these performance measures at a set level for a 12 month period.“SGMC is dedicated to helping our patients have the best possible outcome and implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation program will help us accomplish this by making it easier for our teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis,” said Randy Sauls, CEO.“We are pleased to recognize South Georgia Medical Center for their commitment following these guidelines,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of Get With The Guidelines steering committee and Executive Director of Interventional Cardiology Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Shortening the time to effective resuscitation and maximizing post-resuscitation care is critical to patient survival.”Get With The Guidelines-Resuscitation builds on work of the American Heart Association’s National Registry of CardioPulmonary Resuscitation originally launched in 1999 as a database of in-hospital resuscitation events from more than 500 hospitals. Data from the registry and the quality program give participating hospitals feedback on their resuscitation practice and patient outcomes and help develop research-based guidelines for in-hospital resuscitation.
