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

Media Contact: Karina Rusk
831-759-1843

Salinas Valley Health has received The American College of Cardiology’s NCDR Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry Platinum Performance Achievement Award for

2022. This is the second consecutive year Salinas Valley Health has been recognized with the highest honor and one of only 240 hospitals nationwide. Prior to 2021, Salinas Valley Health was at the second highest, Gold Level.

The prestigious award recognizes Salinas Valley Health’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients and signifies the organization and its dedicated staff have 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.

“Our cardiac team delivers world class care, as this top performance award demonstrates once again,” says Pete Delgado, President/CEO of Salinas Valley Health. “Our reward though is not professional recognition, it’s in the personal connections we have with our patients and our confidence to save lives and change lives for the better.”

To receive the Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry Platinum Performance Achievement Award, Salinas Valley Health has demonstrated sustained achievement in the Chest Pain ̶ MI Registry for two consecutive years (2020 and 2021), 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 in adherence to guideline recommendations and overall quality of care provided to heart attack patients.

“It is an honor to award Salinas Valley Health with the Platinum Performance Award for their valuable national leadership and dedication to meeting comprehensive performance measures in patient care,” said Michael C. Kontos, MD,

FACC, chair of the NCDR Chest Pain – MI Registry Steering Subcommittee, and cardiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. “The receipt of this award indicates that Salinas Valley Memorial remains committed to providing top quality, guideline-driven care for heart attack patients. Their success ensures patients are receiving the highest quality cardiovascular care.”

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that over 800,000 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.

Salinas Valley Health is also honored with additional cardiac related national recognition including; Mission: Lifeline STEMI Receiving Center, Gold Plus; Mission: Lifeline NSTEMI, Gold; Get with the Guidelines: Heart Failure, Gold Plus with Honor Roll Elite and Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll; Get with the Guidelines: Stroke, Gold Plus with Honor Roll Elite and Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll; American Heart Association Workplace Health Achievement Gold Award and Cardiac Wellness: American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation.