St. Joseph Medical Center has earned the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke
Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality
improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American
Stroke Association for the treatment of stroke patients.
Get With The Guidelines Stroke helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date,
research-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing
death and disability for stroke patients. St. Joseph 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
measures include aggressive use of medications and risk-reduction therapies
aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
St Joseph also received the association’s Target: Stroke Honor Roll
for meeting stroke quality measures that reduces the time between hospital
arrival and treatment with the clot-buster tPA, the only drug approved
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. People
who suffer a stroke who receive the drug within three hours of the onset
of symptoms may recover quicker and are less likely to suffer severe disability.
“This recognition shows our commitment to ensure that our patients
receive care based on internationally-respected clinical guidelines,”
says Kathleen Henderson, Stroke Program Coordinator at St. Joseph. “Programs
earning this recognition have implemented prevention measures and provided
community education in risk factors and warning signs for stroke.:
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association,
stroke is the number four 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.