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Delmarva Foundation Applauds Goals of New Heart Care Alliance

Easton, MD, June 21, 2006 - Delmarva Foundation, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for Maryland and the District of Columbia, announced its support today for the goals unveiled on June 21, 2006 by the Alliance for Cardiac Care Excellence (ACE).  Delmarva Foundation is a charter member of the ACE Coalition which is composed of twenty-nine leading organizations - including the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality, the American Heart Association, the American Hospital Association, and the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) - that have joined forces to ensure that all cardiac patients regularly receive care consistent with nationally accepted standards.

“We support the goals established by ACE and the work already being conducted across the country by ACE member organizations to meet these goals,” said Maulik Joshi, DrPH, President and CEO, Delmarva Foundation.  “Patient safety and quality improvement have become increasingly important topics in health care—not only for policymakers and government officials, but also for patients—and it is our hope that the ACE announcement will lead to even more accelerated cardiac care improvement across the country,” he added.

Today, only about 85 percent of eligible adult cardiac patients treated in U.S. acute care hospitals receive the appropriate care, according to publicly reported data on Hospital Compare, a consumer Web site developed by CMS in partnership with the Hospital Quality Alliance, a public-private collaboration.  (“Eligible” means patients that meet specific medical criteria to receive recommended cardiac care and specific treatments.)  ACE members will help hospitals bridge the gap between clinical procedures and treatments proven to be most effective and the care many adult cardiac patients actually receive.  The alliance will begin by focusing on seven basic quality measures, which include, for example, whether all patients arriving at a hospital with symptoms of a heart attack receive aspirin, beta blockers and other recommended treatments at the right time. 

Work already being conducted in Maryland and the District by Delmarva Foundation includes the establishment of the Appropriate Care Excellence Network among 16 area hospitals.  The purpose of the hospital network is to help hospitals implement interventions that reduce mortality.  This is accomplished by instituting systems to ensure that every patient gets the right care for their condition every time.  The quality of care measures the network uses to gauge their success are focused on three clinical conditions- acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia.

For more information on these or any of the quality improvement resources available at Delmarva Foundation, visit www.dlemarvafoundation.org.

About Delmarva Foundation
Delmarva Foundation is a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality in over 20 states. Since 1973, Delmarva has assisted in improving care in hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, medical practices and health plans. Delmarva performs quality improvement, quality assurance, utilization review, external quality review and Program Safeguard activities. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Easton, Maryland with other offices in Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, DC; Columbia, South Carolina; Tampa, Florida; and Tallahassee, Florida. For more information, please visit Delmarva Foundation on the web at www.delmarvafoundation.org.

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This material was prepared by Delmarva Foundation under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.