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Clinical Measures:

Delivering Recommended Care for Patients With Heart Attack

What are we measuring and why?

To measure how well we meet the Joint Commission's* standards of care for patients having a heart attack, we track our success in performing recommended practices. These include:

Giving patients vital medications when they arrive and when they leave the hospital
Counseling smokers to help them quit
Ensuring they have rapid access to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)

How are we doing and how do we compare to best practice?

Each of these measures aids in the treatment and improves the survival rate of heart attack patients. Partners HealthCare's annual rates of adherence to these best practices range from 98% to 100% which is comparable to the Massachusetts State average of 99%.

What are we doing to improve?

Partners HealthCare has created teams from our hospitals to share best practices for continuous improvement. We use a number of tools to help us comply with the standards. These include order sets, check lists, and reminders. Our goal is to standardize care and to ensure that all heart attack patients who come to any Partners HealthCare hospital receive the best possible care.

* The Joint Commission is the nation’s leading organization dedicated to healthcare quality in hospitals. It has created National Hospital Quality Measures in many areas. These are practices proven to ensure the best possible outcomes for patients.

** The Joint Commission, average score for hospitals in Massachusetts.