(Courtesy of St. Mary’s General Hospital) November is American Diabetes Month, a time to understand that living with type 2 diabetes puts you at higher risk for heart disease and stroke. In fact, the American Heart Association (AHA) reports that every 80 seconds, an adult with diabetes in the U.S. is hospitalized for heart disease, which can lead to a heart attack!
The American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA) have launched a collaborative landmark initiative called Know Diabetes by Heart™ to comprehensively combat the national public health impact of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic, New Jersey is proud to be recognized by the AHA with the STEMI1: Silver Plus, and Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll™2 awards for our commitment to following treatment guidelines, part of ensuring that all Americans have access to high-quality, safe, evidence-based care that saves lives and improves patient outcomes. These rankings are included in US News & World Report Magazine 2021 Best Hospitals issue.
Hospitals with advanced Silver Plus ratings have shown outstanding performance in high quality systems care performance by meeting or exceeding guideline therapy recommendations in treating patients with STEMI heart attacks. This includes 75% or higher achievement of First Door-to-Device time of 120 minutes or less for transferred STEMI patients for one consecutive calendar year.
Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll™ is a distinguished honor for hospitals engaging in advanced care for patients with heart failure and/or stroke and type 2 diabetes. The hospital must be able to demonstrate at least 90% compliance for 12 consecutive months for the “Overall Diabetes Cardiovascular Initiative Composite Score” measure.
Speak with your healthcare provider and get tested for diabetes and heart disease. Ask what you can do to lower your risk for heart disease and stroke. The recommendations will most likely be to manage blood pressure, control cholesterol, reduce blood sugar, get active, eat better, lose weight, stop smoking and reduce stress, all of which are difficult during this COVID period.
The American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association have excellent resources for you if, chas v’shalom, you are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease, including guides for physical and mental well-being. And, please contact St. Mary’s General Hospital for help with these programs.
St. Mary’s General Hospital is nationally recognized and locally preferred among the top hospitals in America for health, quality and patient safety! A center of excellence for maternal-child care, the hospital has over 550 physicians and 1,200 employees, with every staff member committed to providing respectful, personalized, high-quality care to satisfy patients’ needs and exceed their expectations. St. Mary’s General is a proud member of Prime Healthcare, which has more Patient Safety Excellence Award recipients for five consecutive years (2016-2020) than any other health system in the country, including a “Top 15 Healthcare System” by Truven Health Analytics. To learn more about St. Mary’s General Hospital, visit https://www.smh-nj.com/ or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/StMarysGeneral.
For more information, please contact George Matyjewicz, PhD, community liaison at [email protected]
1 STEMI: ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) is a very serious type of heart attack during which one of the heart’s major arteries (one of the arteries that supplies oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the heart muscle) is blocked. Patients experiencing acute STEMI are at risk for developing life-threatening arrhythmias like ventricular fibrillation which causes sudden cardiac arrest (“massive heart attack”). These patients require cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation — a “shock” to restore a normal heart rhythm.
