DEKALB, IL – August 21, 2024 – For the fourth consecutive year, Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital has received the American Heart Association’s (AHA) highest achievement for heart failure care. The hospital earned the 2024 Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Gold Plus status, demonstrating its commitment to providing all heart failure patients with access to the latest best practices and life-saving treatments.
“The award is basically indicative of the care that you’re providing to people,” said Christoper Berry, MD, an interventional cardiologist at the Blum Cardiovascular Institute at Kishwaukee Hospital. “By achieving a certain level of quality in this program, this will, in turn, lead to improved outcomes in our patients.”
The Get With The Guidelines® – Heart Failure quality achievement award is given to hospitals that show a dedication to treating patients using the most recent AHA guidelines. This is accomplished by consistently entering baseline and patient data into an AHA Registry Tool and following the recommended treatment plans.
“Managing this patient population is very labor intensive,” explained Dr. Berry. “It really does take a village. In addition to ensuring patients are on appropriate medical therapy and offered the right medical devices, a lot of attention is given to diet, activity, and symptom management.
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Follow-up visits and phone calls are frequent. So, a lot goes into receiving an award like this.”
Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital also received recognition on the American Heart Association’s Honor Roll for Heart Failure and Type 2 Diabetes treatments in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Marsha Royalty, 68, of DeKalb has been a patient at Northwestern Medicine for over two decades and started seeing Dr. Berry for heart failure in 2016. “He’s always been very attentive and willing to listen to me as a patient. I’ve had an absolutely wonderful experience with him,” said Royalty. “I have not had one single nurse or doctor that I wasn’t fond of there. I’ve loved them all.”