Performance measure changes for Advanced Certification in Heart Failure for 2025

Effective Jan. 1, 2025, performance measures for the Advanced Certification in Heart Failure (ACHF) Program will include new measures and the removal of other measures. The Joint Commission and the American Heart Association (AHA) made these changes as a result of feedback from The Joint Commission’s public comment period, a technical advisory panel, and the AHA, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), and the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

ACHF certified organizations will be required to report on the following new performance measures from the AHA’s Get With The Guidelines^®—Heart Failure (GWTG–HF) registry:

• AHAHF106: Defect-Free Care for Quadruple Therapy Medication for Patients with Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction (HFrEF)
• AHAHF94: Sodium-Glucose Co-Transporters (SGLT)-2 Inhibitor at Discharge for Patients with HFpEF/HFmrEF (Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction/Heart Failure with Mid-Range Ejection Fraction)

These new measures will be added to the ACHF bundle in the GWTG-HF registry and The Joint Commission’s Certification Measure Information Process (CMIP) tool.

In addition, ACHF certified organizations will not be required to report on ACHF-01: Beta-Blocker Therapy, and all optional outpatient measures will be removed for ACHF only. Performance measures that overlap with the Comprehensive Cardiac Care certification program are still included in that program.

These revisions will publish online in the fall 2024 E-dition® update to the Comprehensive Certification Manual for Disease-Specific Care (DSC). For those who choose to purchase it, the 2025 DSC PDF manual will include these revisions.

For questions related to GWTG measure specifications, contact the AHA at or a site’s local GWTG Program Consultant. Contact The Joint Commission with any other questions related to ACHF performance measures.

These updates will be implemented in the v2025A Specifications Manual and will affect discharges starting Jan. 1, 2025.