DETROIT, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Sinai-Grace Hospital has been selected as one of only 10 hospitals nationwide to participate in Expecting Success: Excellence in Cardiac Care, a new national program that will focus on a wide range of cardiovascular care interventions that are delivered in both inpatient and outpatient settings. The program’s four key goals are:
* To develop effective, replicable quality-improvement strategies, models and resources;
* To encourage the spread of those strategies and models to clinical areas outside of cardiac care;
* To share relevant lessons with health care providers and policymakers nationwide; and
* To improve cardiovascular care for African Americans and Hispanics.
Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and coordinated by The George Washington University Medical Center School of Public Health and Health Services, the Expecting Success program is aimed to develop and test potential solutions to well-documented racial and ethnic disparities in health care delivery. Though the Foundation has long been involved in spearheading and funding research aimed at documenting such disparities, the introduction of Expecting Success marks a significant shift toward identifying specific solutions.
“We are very excited to work with these hospitals toward the goal of providing high-quality care for all Americans,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
More than 120 hospitals and health systems in the U.S. applied to be pilot sites for the Expecting Success program. The 10 hospitals selected to participate -- Del Sol Medical Center (El Paso, TX), Delta Regional Medical Center (Greenville, MS), Duke University Hospital (Durham, NC), Memorial Healthcare System (Hollywood, FL), Montefiore Medical Center (New York, NY), Mount Sinai Hospital Medical Center (Chicago, IL), Sinai-Grace Hospital (Detroit, MI), University Health System (San Antonio, TX), University of Mississippi Medical Center (Jackson, MS), and Washington Hospital Center (Washington, DC) -- all have minority patient populations, treat many cardiac patients, and share a proven ability to design programs to develop and test best practices in cardiac care. They represent a mix of urban and rural facilities, as well as community and teaching institutions.
Together, the 10 facilities will participate in a collaborative “learning network” to test new ideas, quantify results, and share lessons learned. Program successes will be shared nationwide throughout the four-and-a-half year initiative for hospitals and medical centers across the country to adopt as new standards of care.
“Sinai-Grace is privileged to have been selected by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,” said Conrad Mallett, Jr., president of Sinai-Grace Hospital. “Our association with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will give us the opportunity to further extend our high-quality cardiac care program into the community to effectively educate, support and counsel patients about their cardiac health as well as other related conditions that can affect their heart. This project’s community outreach initiative will help remove barriers to deliver exceptional cardiac care to those in the community that need it. This will also build a multi-disciplinary team of medical experts to help empower the patient to become more active in his or her health care and develop a deeper understanding about cardiac health.”
The Sinai-Grace’s Expecting Success program has two components. The inpatient component tracks Sinai-Grace’s successful standards of cardiac care. The outreach component, titled “Healthy Heart Outreach Program,” provides area residents with additional support and cardiac care education from a multi- disciplinary team that visits five community settings, including churches, senior centers and a local community center, weekly.
“Our first task is to assess the care our patients receive and then develop specific ways of ensuring consistent excellence,” explains Mohamed S. Siddique, M.D., Chief of Medicine and physician leader of the Sinai-Grace program. “This will mean making sure our patients get exactly what is recommended for their conditions as well as helping them to better understand what they need to do to safeguard their own health. We are eager to work closely with the nine other hospitals across the nation to design effective solutions that ultimately improve health care quality for our patients, and all other Americans.”
Sinai-Grace Hospital is a full-service hospital with 404 licensed beds and 700 physicians, 900 nurses and 2,000 health care professionals. Services and capabilities include cardiology, emergency medicine, obstetrics/ gynecology, urological services, psychiatry, radiation oncology, gerontology, physical medicine and orthopaedic surgery. Sinai-Grace operates more than 25 ambulatory sites and surgery centers, including the Lahser and Berry Surgery Centers. With more than 214,000 patients annually, Sinai-Grace serves as a teaching facility to more than 200 residents and 150 medical students each year. Sinai-Grace Hospital is a member of the Detroit Medical Center.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 30 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit http://www.rwjf.org .
Sinai-Grace Hospital
CONTACT: Renee Shimmel of Detroit Medical Center, +1-313-966-1044
Web site: http://www.dmc.org/http://www.rwjf.org/
