Straub Clinic & Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: Stroke Honor Roll. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines created using the latest scientific evidence.
Straub earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period. These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.
“Time is a critical factor in the successful treatment and recovery for patients who suffer a stroke, and this award demonstrates our commitment to ensuring patients receive timely and effective care based on nationally-respected clinical guidelines,” said Straub CEO Art Gladstone. “Our team of physicians, nurses and other healthcare providers at Straub is dedicated to constantly improving the quality of stroke care for our patients and the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program helps us achieve that goal.”
To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures.
To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, hospitals also must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability.
“We are pleased to recognize Straub Clinic & Hospital for its commitment to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee, executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce length of stay and 30-day re-admission rates and reduce disparities in care.”
Earlier this year, Straub also earned advanced certification as a Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number five cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
About Get With The Guidelines®
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 5 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org/quality or heart.org/QualityMap.