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| Vol. 24, No. 17 |
| September 15, 2002 |
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A Healthy "Send-Off" for Cardiac Patients A half-day workshop to help health professionals implement lifesaving guidelines when discharging patients with coronary artery disease from the hospital is being offered Saturday, Sept. 28, from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The American Heart Association estimates that the guidelines, if implemented nationally, could save more than 80,000 lives each year. The workshop, presented by Christie M. Ballantyne, M.D., director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center and professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine's section of atherosclerosis and lipoprotein research, marks the Houston launch of the heart association's "Get with the Guidelines" program, a hospital-based discharge program that ensures patients are released from the hospital with appropriate medications and with risk counseling. The workshop is designed to assist health professionals in implementing the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines. Each year, more than 450,000 individuals experience recurrent coronary attacks. AHA research indicates that within six years after an acute myocardial infarction, about 22 percent of men and 46 percent of women will be disabled with heart failure. Within one year of an attack, 25 percent of men and 38 percent of women will die. Outcomes research indicates that "Get with the Guidelines" could significantly improve these results by increasing and maintaining adherence to critical secondary prevention treatments such as beta blockers and cholesterol-lowering therapies. "Get with the Guidelines" will be held at the Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana Street. CE and CME credits are available. To register, call (214) 706-1701 or e-mail leslie.deshaze@heart.org.
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