Community Partnerships Profile: American Heart Association

American Heart Association

Go Red for Women Day, 2020

In honor of National Heart Month, Tri-City Medical Center is proud to highlight our partnership with the American Heart Association (AHA) under our COASTAL Commitment initiative. Through the COASTAL Commitment, we aim to address the health needs of our community through collaborations with well-positioned local non-profits and organizations.

Heart Month

This month we focus on heart health in hopes of motivating community members to adopt healthy lifestyles to prevent heart disease. National Heart Month is celebrated to bring awareness to cardiovascular health issues which are the leading cause of death in the U.S, estimated to cause 650,000 fatalities per year. People with underlying cardiovascular issues are at a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Bring awareness to heart healthy by sharing and joining these important Heart Month days and events such as National Wear Red Day and LOVE YOUR HEART.

TCMC Nurse Debbie using the RQI Simulator

CPR Training

Tri-City Medical Center has been a longstanding partner with the AHA for many years. Through our COASTAL Commitment initiative, we have supported the annual Heart Walk, Go Red for Women, community CPR training and elevating awareness of cardiovascular disease in North County.

We are excited to announce that in partnership with the AHA, Tri-City Medical Center has implemented their Resuscitation Quality Improvement (RQI) program, which is used to improve and maintain our staff’s CPR skills and verification within our hospital. According to the AHA, more than 600,000 children and adults in the U.S. experience a cardiac arrest and less than 15% survive. Studies show that high-quality CPR can improve those outcomes tremendously. CPR psychomotor skills decline rapidly without practice, and with the RQI program, Tri-City Medical Center now has the resources to do more frequent in-house training using the RQI Simulation Station.

Training Center Coordinator, Liz with nurse Debbie

The RQI Simulation Station is a realistic mobile eSimulation of patient cases which includes an adult and infant manikin, bag-mask device, step stool and an interactive learning management center. The learning management center involves real-time guidance instruction with feedback provided to improve CPR skills. Liz Fleming, Tri-City Medical Center’s Training Center Coordinator is hopeful, stating, “The RQI program has the student go to the manikin every three months to refresh their skills, rather than go to another location to get less frequent training.”

Tri-City Medical Center is committed to bringing quality, compassionate care to our friends and neighbors in our medical center, clinics or community. To learn more about the American Heart Association and for more heart health resources visit heart.org or tricitymed.org/heart

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