Approximately 80 healthcare professionals from Premier member organizations

attended the launch of the Acute Myocardial Infarction Collaborative on Sunday in

Kansas City, Mo. This collaborative, sponsored by Premier’s Clinical Performance
Initiatives, focuses on AMI with ST elevation, a specific type of heart attack
that is the nation’s number one killer.

Premier’s Clinical Performance Initiatives strive to improve the safety and

quality of healthcare for the more than 1,800 Premier hospitals while reducing
costs through best evidence-base practices that are implemented for widespread
use.

"The specific goals of this (AMI Focus Area) are to explore ways to improve care
of AMI patients at two key points in the care process: from entry to discharge
from the hospital," says Dr. Leslie McCombs of Premier’s Clinical Performance
Initiatives unit, project director for the AMI Collaborative and Cardiovascular
Services.

Best evidence-based practices, says McCombs, show that timely reperfusion, via
thrombolytics (door to needle time in less than 30 minutes) improves the quality
of patient care. Percutaneous coronary intervention (door to balloon inflation
time in less than 90 minutes) also improves the quality of patient care. Best
evidenced-based practices also show that when eligible, all AMI patients should be
discharged on aspirin, a "statin," and a beta-blocker. "Our aim is for all Premier
hospitals to strive for these goals," says McCombs.

Another goal for hospitals participating in the AMI Focus Area is to get 80
percent of all AMI patients who smoke counseling to help stop this deadly
activity. Nationally, only 30 percent of such patients receive anti-smoking
counseling, according to McCombs.

The approximately 80 healthcare professionals who attended this AMI kickoff

included cardiologists, cardiovascular services nurse mangers, cardiovascular line
administrators, clinical pharmacists and performance improvement directors

"I’m really interested in AMI because we do lots of open-heart surgeries," said

Suzette-Grier-Bosveld, clinical nurse specialist who works with heart patients at
White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., a Premier hospital. "A lot
of our patients come from East LA and we have lots of cardiac-related problems."

The yearlong collaborative process will require hospitals to submit data for
analysis, two more face-to-face meetings with members of the Clinical Performance
Initiatives team and conference calls. In addition, the Clinical Performance
Initiatives team will make site visits to top-performing Premier hospitals to
learn how they will go about achieving the goals.

The AMI Collaborative ends in the spring of 2002. For more information, contact
McCombs at leslie_mccombs@premierinc.com or call 704.733.5209.

Top | Home

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------