Primer: implementation of guideline-based programs for coronary care

The American College of Cardiology Acute Myocardial Infarction Guidelines Applied in Practice program in Michigan, USA, was an initiative designed to improve the quality of cardiovascular care by bringing the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association practice guidelines to the point of care. The program consisted of three different projects, involving a total of 33 hospitals. The program was implemented in five phases-planning, tool implementation, monitoring of tool use, remeasurement and reporting of results-by use of a collaborative model, which included a series of learning sessions for staff members that focused on the five phases. The goal was to identify the highest care priorities for patients with acute coronary syndromes and to incorporate these into the care itself. This aim was achieved with a standardized set of clinical-care tools, such as admission orders and discharge contracts; the use of such tools is associated with improvement in adherence to guidelines. Strategies were, however, tailored to each hospital by local teams. Performance was assessed by the use of tracking tools, which facilitate rapid improvement by enabling key performance indicators founded on the guidelines to be monitored. Using qualitative surveys of the project leaders, we identified an optimum timeline and correlations between hospital-specific attributes and greater or lesser success in achieving positive change. In this review, we describe our experience and identify the most useful strategies for future implementation of such a project.