Oct. 27, 2004 – Tenet Healthcare Corporation (NYSE: THC) announced today that 83 hospitals owned and operated by Tenet subsidiaries have been recognized for participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The GuidelinesSM – Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) program. The program is designed to ensure heart disease and stroke patients are consistently treated and discharged based on nationally accepted recommendations and guidelines to reduce a patient’s risk of a second heart attack or stroke.
Additionally, four Tenet hospitals – Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.; Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center in Fountain Valley, Calif.; Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, Calif., and Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif. – have been awarded the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines SM – CAD Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes these hospitals’ commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of cardiac care that effectively improves treatment of patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease. Nationwide, almost 500 hospitals are currently participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The GuidelinesSM – Coronary Artery Disease program.
“We commend Tenet for their commitment to Get With The GuidelinesSM and raising the bar on quality to improve care for coronary artery disease patients,” said Kenneth A. LaBresh, M.D., American Heart Association volunteer member of the national Get With The GuidelinesSM Steering Committee. “The full implementation of secondary prevention guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives of coronary patients. This quality improvement program translates what we know about cardiovascular disease into what is done in clinical practice with a goal of saving lives.”
“We are very proud that so many of our hospitals have been recognized by the American Heart Association for participating in a program that seeks to increase the number of patients receiving the latest evidence-based care,” said Trevor Fetter, Tenet’s president and chief executive officer. “This is an affirmation of the commitment we have made as a company to improving treatment for patients with coronary disease that come to our hospitals.”
Jennifer Daley, M.D., Tenet’s senior vice president for clinical quality, said: “One of the key components of Tenet’s internal, companywide Commitment to Quality initiative is supporting evidence-based practice of medicine. We’re delighted to participate in the American Heart Association’s Get With The GuidelinesSM program that aims to achieve the best evidence-based practice in cardiac care at our hospitals.”
Under the Get With The GuidelinesSM program, patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, aspirin, ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers in the hospital and receive smoking cessation and weight management counseling and referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before they are discharged. Hospitals that receive the performance achievement award have demonstrated that at least 85 percent of their coronary patients (without contraindications) are discharged following the American Heart Association’s recommended treatments.
According to American Heart Association statistics, more than 450,000 people suffer recurrent heart attacks each year. Statistics also show that within one year of a heart attack, 25 percent of men and 38 percent of women will die. Within six years after a heart attack, about 22 percent of men and 46 percent of women will be disabled with heart failure.
Tenet’s Commitment to Quality is a companywide strategy designed to enhance the overall quality and productivity of the care delivery process at Tenet hospitals across the country. It includes a series of targeted initiatives to bring about significant improvements in evidence-based quality of care and patient safety, nursing practice, medical staff governance, and other important areas related to the delivery of quality care. The Commitment to Quality has already been implemented at 30 of the 69 core Tenet hospitals that will remain after the company’s current divestiture program is concluded. Full implementation at the rest of Tenet’s core hospitals is expected to be complete by June 30, 2005.
Tenet Healthcare Corporation, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates acute care hospitals and related health care services. Tenet’s hospitals aim to provide the best possible care to every patient who comes through their doors, with a clear focus on quality and service. Tenet can be found on the World Wide Web at www.tenethealth.com.
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Some of the statements in this release may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on our current expectations and could be affected by numerous factors and are subject to various risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2003, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and periodic reports on Form 8-K. Do not rely on any forward-looking statement, as we cannot predict or control many of the factors that ultimately may affect our ability to achieve the results estimated. We make no promise to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of changes in underlying factors, new information, future events or otherwise.
Below is a list of the 83 Tenet hospitals that have been recognized for implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The GuidelinesSM – Coronary Artery Disease program:
ALABAMA
Brookwood Medical Center, Birmingham
CALIFORNIA
Alvarado Hospital Medical Center, San Diego
Brotman Medical Center, Culver City
Centinela Hospital Medical Center, Inglewood
Chapman Medical Center, Orange
Coastal Communities Hospital, Santa Ana
Community and Mission Hospitals of Huntington Park, Huntington Park*
Community Hospital of Los Gatos, Los Gatos
Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital – Marina del Rey
Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital - Inglewood
Desert Regional Medical Center, Palm Springs
Doctor’s Medical Center of Modesto, Modesto
Doctor’s Hospital of Manteca, Manteca
Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, Encino
Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, Tarzana
CALIFORNIA (Continued)
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Fountain Valley
Garden Grove Hospital & Medical Center, Garden Grove
Garfield Medical Center, Monterey Park
Greater El Monte Community Hospital, South El Monte
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Los Angeles
Irvine Regional Hospital & Medical Center, Irvine
John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, Indio
Lakewood Regional Medical Center, Lakewood
Los Alamitos Medical Center, Los Alamitos
Midway Hospital Medical Center, Los Angeles
Monterey Park Hospital, Monterey Park
Placentia-Linda Hospital, Placentia
San Dimas Community Hospital, San Dimas
San Ramon Regional Medical Center, San Ramon
Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, San Luis Obispo
Suburban Medical Center, Paramount
Twin Cities Community Hospital, Templeton
Western Medical Center – Anaheim, Anaheim
Western Medical Center – Santa Ana, Santa Ana
Whittier Hospital Medical Center, Whittier
FLORIDA
Cleveland Clinic Hospital, Weston
Coral Gables Hospital, Coral Gables
Delray Medical Center, Delray Beach
Florida Medical Center, Fort Lauderdale
Good Samaritan Medical Center, West Palm Beach
Hialeah Hospital, Hialeah
Hollywood Medical Center, Hollywood
North Ridge Medical Center, Fort Lauderdale
North Shore Medical Center, Miami
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, Palm Beach Gardens
Palmetto General Hospital, Hialeah
Parkway Regional Medical Center, North Miami
Saint Mary’s Medical Center, West Palm Beach
West Boca Medical Center, Boca Raton
GEORGIA
Atlanta Medical Center, Atlanta
North Fulton Regional Hospital, Roswell
Spalding Regional Hospital, Griffin
LOUISIANA
Kenner Regional Medical Center, Kenner
Meadowcrest Hospital, Gretna
Memorial Medical Center/Baptist Campus, New Orleans
NorthShore Regional Medical Center, Slidell
Saint Charles General Hospital, New Orleans
MASSACHUSETTS
MetroWest Medical Center, Natick and Framingham*
Saint Vincent Hospital at Worcester Medical Center, Worcester
MISSISSIPPI
Gulf Coast Medical Center, Biloxi
MISSOURI
Des Peres Hospital, St. Louis
Forest Park Hospital, St. Louis
Saint Alexius Hospital, St. Louis
Saint Louis University Hospital, St. Louis
NEBRASKA
Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha
NORTH CAROLINA
Central Carolina Hospital, Sanford
Frye Regional Medical Center, Hickory
PENNSYLVANIA
Graduate Hospital, Philadelphia
Hahnemann University Hospital, Philadelphia
Roxborough Memorial Hospital, Philadelphia
SOUTH CAROLINA
Hilton Head Regional Medical Center, Hilton Head Island
Piedmont Healthcare System, Rock Hill
TENNESSEE
Saint Francis Hospital, Memphis
TEXAS
Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center, Houston
Doctors Hospital of Dallas, Dallas
Houston Northwest Medical Center, Houston
Lake Pointe Medical Center, Rowlett
Nacogdoches Medical Center, Nacogdoches
Park Plaza Hospital, Houston
Providence Memorial Hospital, El Paso
RHD Memorial Medical Center, Dallas
Sierra Medical Center, El Paso
Trinity Medical Center, Carrollton
* MetroWest Medical Center and Community and Mission Hospitals of Huntington Park are two-hospital campuses. Each campus is counted as one facility in the American Heart Association recognition program since data from both hospitals was pooled.