Newswise — MAYWOOD, Ill. – Loyola University Medical Center has received the American College of Cardiology’s Platinum Performance Achievement Award for 2014. Loyola is one of only 256 hospitals nationwide to receive the honor.

The award recognizes Loyola’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients. It signifies that Loyola has reached an aggressive goal of treating these patients to standard levels of care as outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association clinical guidelines and recommendations.

To receive the ACTION Registry–GWTG Platinum Performance Achievement Award, Loyola consistently followed the treatment for eight consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 90 percent for specific performance measures. Full participation in the registry engages hospitals in a robust quality-improvement process using data to drive improvements in adherence to guideline recommendations and overall quality of care provided to heart attack patients.

“The full implementation of acute and secondary prevention guideline-recommended therapy is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of heart attack patients,” said James Jollis, MD, FACC, ACTION Registry-GWTG Chair and Professor of Medicine and Radiology at Duke University Hospital. Heart attack treatment guidelines include administering aspirin upon arrival and discharge, timely restoration of blood flow to the blocked artery, smoking cessation counseling and cardiac rehabilitation. ACTION Registry–GWTG is a partnership between the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association with partnering support from the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care. ACTION Registry-GWTG empowers health care provider teams to consistently treat heart attack patients according to the most current, science-based guidelines and establishes a national standard for understanding and improving the quality, safety and outcomes of care provided for patients with coronary artery disease, specifically high-risk heart attack patients.