Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, far right, with Beth Oliver, DNP, and David L. Reich, MD.
Mount Sinai Heart has earned The Joint Commission’s Comprehensive Cardiac Center (CCC) certification, becoming one of only four organizations in the United States—and the only one on the East Coast—to hold the prestigious honor. The award is a symbol of comprehensive excellence in patient care and recognizes compliance with The Joint Commission’s strict national standards.
“Mount Sinai Heart is honored to receive this award from The Joint Commission that recognizes our outstanding center and quality of care,” says Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital.
The advanced CCC certification has been offered since 2017 by The Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. Only hospitals with a comprehensive service line in cardiology and cardiovascular services are eligible to apply. To earn the two-year certification, Mount Sinai Heart underwent a rigorous two-day onsite survey at The Mount Sinai Hospital in November 2018, in which two reviewers from The Joint Commission evaluated performance in many key areas. Those included: management of heart disease, acute myocardial infarction, percutaneous coronary interventions, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, cardiac valve disease, dysrhythmias, and heart failure; transition of care from the Emergency Department to diagnosis, treatment, and outpatient follow-up; collaboration among specialties and disciplines; cardiac rehabilitation of patients; training of staff; identification of cardiovascular risk factors and prevention of cardiac disease; and the use of data collection to monitor and measure outcomes.
Preparing for the visit involved a vast collaborative effort. “We met every week for 10 months, making sure all of our policies and procedures were up to date,” says Beth Oliver, DNP, Senior Vice President of Cardiac Services, Mount Sinai Health System. “And we had tremendous support from physicians and their teams.” They included Cardiovascular Surgery, the Emergency Department, the Quality Assurance Department, the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, and many other departments throughout The Mount Sinai Hospital. “A side effect is that this process brought all of the departments in the service line even closer, because we were all in this together,” Ms. Oliver says.
Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, with patient Maria Pessino-Bacardi.
According to the World Health Organization, cardiovascular disease is responsible for more than 17 million deaths each year and costs more than $500 billion a year to treat in the United States. To help combat this disease, the Mount Sinai Health System in 2006 established Mount Sinai Heart, with Dr. Fuster as Founding Director. Its multidisciplinary efforts bring together the expertise of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and The Mount Sinai Hospital, which each year cares for more than 65,000 heart patients and is ranked among the top 10 U.S. hospitals for cardiology and heart surgery by U.S. News & World Report.
“The hard work and expertise of our staff at Mount Sinai Heart are reflected in the new CCC certification, and I congratulate them on this top honor,” says David L. Reich, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Mount Sinai Hospital and President of Mount Sinai Queens. “This accomplishment emphasizes and validates our commitment to providing exceptional care to our patients.”
The Joint Commission certification follows another honor for Mount Sinai cardiac care. The Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at The Mount Sinai Hospital has received the gold-level Beacon Award for Excellence from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses. This award honors units that excel in every facet of patient care. Mount Sinai’s is the only coronary intensive care unit in New York State to have this recognition.