St. Luke’s Health-Memorial Nationally Recognized Again by ACC

The American College of Cardiology once again recognized St. Luke’s Health-Memorial as a champion in providing world-class patient care through the hospital’s sustainable, quality improvement program. ACC’s prestigious Pioneer Award was presented to a handful of innovative hospitals from across the nation that developed innovative, high-quality and evidence-based processes for patients suffering from heart disease.

Ravinder Bachireddy, M.D., FACC, ACC Cardiovascular Champion and Chief of Cardiology for St. Luke’s Health-Memorial Lufkin, and Jamie Huckabee, FNP-C, accepted the award at the ACC Quality Summit, NCDR and Accreditation Annual Session & Expo in New Orleans on Friday, March 15 on behalf of the hospital.

“Our mission and vision has been to transform cardiovascular care in deep East Texas and improve heart health through high quality, appropriate and cost-effective care. We achieved this prestigious and highest recognition given to any hospital from the American College of Cardiology through collaboration, commitment, focus and team work. We are very proud of this achievement which elevates Lufkin to a Regional Medical Center of Excellence,” Dr. Bachireddy said.

St. Luke’s Health was recently designated as a HeartCARE Center National Distinction of Excellence by the ACC – the second hospital in the state of Texas and the ninth in the nation to receive this first-of-its-kind distinction. The Pioneer Award honors hospitals that achieved this designation during the first year of its existence and recognizes them as “pioneers” in advancing the cause of sustainable quality improvement.

“We are deeply honored to receive these two awards and to be recognized for the quality care we strive to provide each and every day,” said Monte Bostwick, President & CEO of St. Luke’s Health-Memorial. “We pride ourselves on being the best, but more importantly, we are proud to be recognized across the nation as being one of the best.”

Becoming an ACC HeartCARE Center validates the significant steps St. Luke’s Health has taken to deliver exceptional care to its patients. St. Luke’s Health has the highest accredited Chest Pain Center in the region, along with the only accredited Cardiac Rehabilitation Center between Tyler and Houston. The hospital has an advanced focus on quality in its Cardiac Cath Lab, Electrophysiology Lab and Heart Failure program. St. Luke’s Health also participates in numerous registries, which are powerful tools used by healthcare organizations across the nation to track and manage quality measures, and regularly meets dozens of quality standards set by the American College of Cardiology.

“We tried to figure out a way that we could recognize truly outstanding centers – institutions that not only pursue accreditation or only pursue data collection, but see the synergy when those two pursuits come together,” said Phillip D. Levy, MD, FACC, chair of the ACC Accreditation Management Board.