University Hospital Honored with Quality Achievement Award for Stroke Care
UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL HONORED WITH QUALITY ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR STROKE CARE
University Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence. University Hospital earned the awards 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.
To receive the Gold plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85% or higher adherence to all Get with the Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75% or higher compliance with five of eight Get with The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures for the 12-month period.
To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite, hospitals 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, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, and up to four-and-a-half hours in certain eligible patients, tPA may improve the chances of recovering from a stroke.
“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and this award demonstrates our commitment to ensuring patients receive care based on nationally-respected clinical guidelines,” said Andrea Hidalgo, MD, Director of The Comprehensive Stroke Center at University Hospital. “Our hospital is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke helps us achieve that goal.”
University Hospital was also a recipient of Target: Type 2 Diabetes Award for 2020. To be eligible for this award, the hospital should have > 90% compliance for 12 consecutive months for the overall Diabetes Cardiovascular Initiative Composite Score with ≥10 stroke patients with a new onset or previous history of Diabetes.
”We are pleased to recognize University Hospital for their commitment to stroke care,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., National Chairperson of the Quality Oversight Committee and Executive Vice Chair of Neurology, Director of Acute Stroke Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”
For providers, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke offers quality improvement measures, discharge protocols, standing orders and other measurement tools. Providing hospitals with resources and information that make it easier to follow treatment guidelines can help save lives and ultimately reduce overall healthcare costs by lowering readmission rates for stroke patients.
For patients, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they learn how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital and recognize the F.A.S.T. warning signs of a stroke.
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 and nearly 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 tools and resources to increase adherence to 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 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.