The quality of heart care at hospitals accredited by The Joint Commission continues to improve, according to America's Hospitals: Improving Quality and Safety: The Joint Commission's 2014 Annual Report.
Overall, the heart attack care composite measure of the hospitals reviewed improved by 1.3 percent from 2009 to 2013. The improvement percentage was calculated by taking the number of times the measure was met by the hospital and dividing it by the number of opportunities the hospital had to meet the measure.
Listed below are eight additional heart attack or heart failure measures upon which hospitals have improved.
- PCI therapy within 90 minutes — 8.6 percent improvement between 2009 and 2013
- Fibrinolytic therapy within 30 minutes — 5.1 percent
- ACEI or ARB at discharge (for heart failure) — 3.1 percent
- ACEI or ARB at discharge — 2.6 percent
- Statin prescribed at discharge — 1.1 percent
- Aspirin at arrival — 1.0 percent
- Aspirin at discharge — 0.9 percent
- Beta-blocker at discharge — 0.9 percent