Lutheran earns Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for sixth straight year
5/22/2018
Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite status added for 2018
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (May 23, 2018) - The primary stroke center at Lutheran Hospital, an advanced certification achieved through The Joint Commission, has earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for the sixth consecutive year. The award recognizes Lutheran's commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines derived from the latest scientific evidence.
For 2018, Lutheran has also received the AHA/ASA Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite award. To qualify for this recognition, 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 primary drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. Specifically, Lutheran's primary stroke center has demonstrated its ability to begin thrombolytic therapy within 60 minutes in 75 percent or more of acute ischemic stroke patients treated with IV tPA.
"Achieving Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite status for 2018 says a great deal about our team's desire to take high-quality stroke care and find ways to make it better," said Andrea Haller, MD, medical director of the primary stroke center at Lutheran Hospital. "Independent validation like this - and the advanced certification we have from The Joint Commission - confirms that we are doing the right things to enhance care for stroke patients."
Get With The Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus recipients earn 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 measures include evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments aligned with the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Before discharge, patients should also receive education on managing their health, get a follow-up visit scheduled, as well as other care transition interventions.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
"We are pleased to recognize Lutheran Hospital for its commitment to stroke care," said Eric E. Smith, M.D., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and an associate professor of neurology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. "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."
Visit LutheranHospital.com/stroke-care to learn more about stroke and the care available through Lutheran's primary stroke center.
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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.
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