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Publicizing Your Hospital's Quality Commitment

Your hospital’s Get With The Guidelines^® recognition is tangible evidence of the care team’s hard work and commitment to saving lives. It’s an accomplishment worth sharing with the community and hospital stakeholders. It's also an important differentiator and a competitive edge for your hospital.

Ideas for publicizing Get With The Guidelines accomplishments within the hospital:

• Place table tent ads on surfaces in patient waiting rooms, cafeterias, etc.
• Mount signage on restroom walls framed or post promo ads on the individual stall walls.
• Hang a banner in your main entrance.
• Place a small ad or sticker on the daily patient menu.
• Use a slide to announce your award on the internal closed-circuit TV.
• Place an ad or an article in your hospital newsletter.
• Send a memo to the hospital board of directors, CEO and other hospital stakeholders.

Ideas for holding a recognition celebration:

• Schedule a ceremony at your hospital, inviting key team members, local dignitaries, board members and the media. (Please check with your local Get With The Guidelines representative for publicity guidelines.)
• Add recognition ceremonies to scheduled staff gatherings, such as department meetings, or plan a dedicated Get With The Guidelines recognition event for the care team.
• Ask your hospital’s Get With The Guidelines champion to provide a recap of the program, its goals and the hospital’s experience with the program.
• Have a photographer document the certificate or award presentation.
• Create a celebratory atmosphere by distributing Get With The Guidelines give-away items, disposable cameras to document the event and heart-healthy refreshments.
• Prominently display Get With The Guidelines posters, banners and table tents.

Ideas for publicizing Get With The Guidelines accomplishments within the community:

• Place a radio spot on local stations.
• Place an ad or banner on the home page of your hospital's website.
• Use a billboard near your site.
• Run an ad in your local newspaper, a newspaper wrapper or a front-page sticker.
• Add an announcement of the award to your on-hold message recording.
• Place an ad or article in your external newsletter.

Need help saying it? Try these key messages:

• What really gets us excited is seeing how we're affecting lives.
• Our greatest reward is serving our patients. That’s why we’re committed to turning treatment guidelines into lifelines.
• Being honored for giving excellent patient care is the best recognition a hospital can get.
• At <hospital name>, we care about our patients. That’s why we’ve made a commitment to turn treatment guidelines into lifelines.
• Sample verbiage you might put on a banner: As seen recently in <journal where ad appeared>, <hospital name> has been recognized by the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½/American Stroke Association for turning guidelines into lifelines. Join us in congratulating our physicians, nurses and quality improvement professionals for their commitment to excellent care.
• Sample radio ad script: The care our patients receive at <hospital name> is our number one priority. That’s why we’re proud to be among the hospitals recently recognized by the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½/American Stroke Association in the <journal where ad appeared> for our excellence in implementing the Get With The Guidelines program.
• Sample on-hold script: We’ve recently been recognized by the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½/American Stroke Association for our accomplishment in the Get With The Guidelines quality program. Join us in congratulating our physicians, nurses and quality improvement professionals for turning treatment guidelines into lifelines.

Note: Hospitals should work closely with their local QI representative to ensure promotional items comply with the Get With The Guidelines branding guidelines as well as to ensure the content of all statements is correct. Hospitals are not granted the use of the AHA, ASA or AHA/ASA logos for becoming a Get With The Guidelines Performance Achievement Award recipient.