Bayfront Health St. Petersburg Receives National Recognition from American Heart Association for Quality Patient Care

St. Petersburg, FL – (September 24, 2021) – Bayfront Health St. Petersburg received three awards from the American Heart Association. The achievements recognize hospitals across the country for providing quality stroke care.

Nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have experienced some form of cardiovascular disease including heart attack, stroke and heart failure. Evaluation measures for these national achievements assess the speed and accuracy at which care is provided to patients once they arrive at the hospital. The implementation of quality improvement measures to ensure cardiovascular patients receive efficient and coordinated care ultimately leads to more lives saved, shorter recovery times and fewer returns to the hospital. Hospitals that receive these awards must meet certain criteria designed to evaluate the implementation of the most current, evidence-based standards.

Bayfront Health St. Petersburg received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus award with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite and Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll. “The quality and speed at which a patient receives care can make the biggest difference for the best possible outcome,” said James Tucker, chief quality officer at Bayfront Health St Petersburg. “These awards further demonstrate our clinical staff’s dedication to consistently providing the most up-to-date, clinically proven care when it matters most.”

Recognized hospitals are also required to provide patients with further education about their health, schedule a follow-up visit and provide additional care transition interventions. The implementation of follow-up care helps set patients up for success with managing their health even after leaving the hospital.

About Bayfront Health St. Petersburg

The 480-bed Bayfront Health St. Petersburg was founded in 1910. It was acquired October 1, 2020 by Orlando Health, a not-for-profit healthcare organization with $7.1 billion of assets under management. The hospital’s areas of clinical excellence include heart and vascular, surgical services, rehabilitation services, neurosciences, maternity care and – as home to the only state-accredited Level Two Adult Trauma Center in Pinellas County – emergency services and trauma care.

Bayfront Health St. Petersburg is integral to the 3,200-bed Orlando Health system which serves the southeastern United States through 15 wholly-owned hospitals and emergency departments; rehabilitation services, cancer and heart institutes, imaging and laboratory services, wound care centers, physician offices for adults and pediatrics, skilled nursing facilities, an in-patient behavioral health facility, home healthcare services in partnership with LHC Group, and urgent care centers in partnership with CareSpot Urgent Care. Nearly 4,200 physicians, representing more than 80 medical specialties and subspecialties have privileges across the system, which employs nearly 22,000 team members.

As a statutory teaching healthcare organization, Orlando Health hosts more than 325 residents and fellows including more than 40 who are enrolled at Bayfront Health St. Petersburg’s OB/GYN, Family Medicine, Sports Medicine and Pharmacy programs.

In FY20, Orlando Health served nearly 150,000 inpatients and nearly 3.1 million outpatients. During that same time period, the organization provided approximately $760 million in total value to the communities it serves in the form of charity care, community benefit programs and services, community building activities and more. Additional information can be found at https://www.bayfrontstpete.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.