Salinas Valley Health Among Nation’s Top Performing Hospitals for Treatment of Heart Attack Patients

Media Contact: Karina Rusk
831-759-1843

During unprecedented challenges in healthcare, Salinas Valley Health is providing medical leadership during COVID-19 and earning awards for exceptional patient care in the area of heart treatment. The most recent honor comes this month from the American College of Cardiology.

Salinas Valley Health is one of only 60 medical centers nationwide to receive the American College of Cardiology’s NCDR Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2020. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients and signifies that Salinas Valley Health has reached an aggressive goal of treating these patients to levels of care as outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association clinical guidelines and recommendations.

“Our teams have shown amazing resiliency and dedication during the pandemic,” says Pete Delgado, President/CEO of Salinas Valley Health. “We remain focused on patient and staff safety while meeting the demands COVID-19 has placed on our system. In addition, it is no surprise that our physicians, cardiologists, hospitalists and professional support staff continue to excel in evidence based specialty care. We’re honored by the national recognition and most especially what that means about the patient care we provide our community.”

"We've been able to recruit and retain a wide range of heart care experts," says Dr. Allen Radner, Chief Medical Officer of Salinas Valley Health and CEO of the Salinas Valley Health Clinics. "It's nice to see the quality care they bring to the organization reflected in the outcome of comprehensive review by the American College of Cardiology."

To receive the Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry Gold Performance Achievement Award, Salinas Valley Health has demonstrated sustained achievement in the Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry for two consecutive years (2018 and 2019), and performed at the top level for specific performance measures. Full participation in the registry engages hospitals in a robust quality improvement process using data to drive improvements, meet guidelines and deliver advanced quality care to heart attack patients.

“As a Gold Performance Award recipient, Salinas Valley Health has established itself as a leader in setting the national standard for improving quality of care in patients with acute myocardial infarction,” said Michael C. Kontos, MD, FACC, chair of the NCDR Chest Pain – MI Registry Steering Subcommittee, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. “By meeting the award requirements set forth in the registry, Salinas Valley Memorial has demonstrated a commitment to providing reliable, comprehensive treatment for heart attack patients based on current clinical guideline recommendations.”

The Gold Performance Achievement Award is just the latest in several honors given to Salinas Valley Health this year. Earlier in 2020, the American Heart Association announced Salinas Valley Health earned Quality Achievement Awards in Mission: Lifeline® STEMI Receiving Center, GOLD and the Mission: Lifeline® – NSTEMI, Silver. In a separate round of achievements, the American Heart Association Get With The Guidelines® honored Salinas Valley Health with three sets of achievements: Heart Failure GOLD PLUS with Honor Roll and Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll; Stroke GOLD PLUS with Honor Roll Elite; and Stroke SILVER Resuscitation.

The Center for Disease Control estimates that almost 700,000 Americans suffer a heart attack each year. A heart attack occurs when a blood clot in a coronary artery partially or completely blocks blood flow to the heart muscle. Treatment guidelines include administering aspirin upon arrival and discharge, timely restoration of blood flow to the blocked artery, smoking cessation counseling and cardiac rehabilitation, among others.

Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry 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.