By the end of the year, 10 hospitals across the country will be part of the ACC Patient Navigator Program, an initiative launched earlier this year by the ACC with support from AstraZeneca. The program helps hospitals establish navigator teams to better coordinate care and improve the quality of life for patients diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome, heart attack and heart failure. These care teams will provide personalized support to patients during their hospital stay and in the weeks following their discharge. It is built upon increasing evidence that the support of well-trained “navigators” can be effective in improving patients’ transitions from hospital to home. The goal: reduce avoidable hospital readmissions by making hospitalizations less stressful and the recovery period more supportive.

The ACC Patient Navigator Program combines the power of ACC NCDR^® data and infrastructure with quality improvement strategies, toolkits, and other best practices learned from the Hospital to Home (H2H) Initiative community experiences in more than 1,500 U.S. hospitals. It will test innovative approaches for producing the greatest patient benefits and implement scalable strategies applying these approaches throughout the larger cardiac care community.

Learn more at CardioSource.org/PatientNavigator.