The Joint Commission and American Heart Association (AHA) have announced a new Disease-Specific Care Advanced Certification Program in Heart Failure. According to the press release by the Joint Commission, the certificate of distinction recognizes hospitals that make "exceptional efforts to foster better quality of care and outcomes for heart failure patients."

Joint Commission's new advanced certification program requires organizations to meet the following criteria:
--To meet the standards and performance measurement requirements under The Joint Commission's Disease-Specific Care Certification program.
--To achieve and sustain for 90 days or more at least 85 percent compliance with the five achievement measures of Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure, the AHA's hospital-based quality improvement program designed to close the treatment gap in cardiovascular disease.

--To collect data on Joint Commission core measures for heart failure and use this data in ongoing performance improvement activities.

According to the Joint Commission, the advanced certification program promotes successful efforts in heart failure management through the use of the standards and quality improvement tools. This includes "a standard method of delivering or coordinating care, implementation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, and clinical practices which support patient self-management."

The Certification information can be found at: http://www.jointcommission.org
/CertificationPrograms/Heart+Failure/default.htm

Source: The Joint Commission.

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