Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center has received national recognition from the American Stroke Association for excellence in stroke care.
The Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award and Target: Stroke Honor Roll designation are awarded to hospitals that have implemented a set of stroke treatment standards and protocols.
To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, St. Francis achieved 85 percent or higher adherence to all award indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.
These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
In addition, St. Francis Medical Center has also been recognized as a recipient of the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, for improving stroke care. In a three month period, at least 50 percent of the hospitals eligible stroke patients have received a key clot-busting medicine called tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as door-to-needle time). Since January 1, St. Francis has achieved door-to-needle times of less than 60 minutes in 80 percent of eligible stroke cases. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, the medicine has been shown to significantly reverse the effects of stroke and reduce permanent disability.
These recognitions demonstrate St. Francis Medical Centers commitment to being one of the top hospitals in the country for providing aggressive, proven stroke care, said Mark Gordon, CEO, Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center. We will continue to provide the best care possible to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients.
Through Get With The GuidelinesStroke, customized patient education materials are made available upon release from the hospital, based on patients individual risk profiles. The take-away materials are written in an easy-to-understand format and are available in English and Spanish. In addition, the Get With The Guidelines Patient Management Tool gives healthcare providers access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science while they are working with patients.
According to the American Stroke Association, stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, long-term 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.
Get With The Guidelines is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Associations hospital-based quality improvement program that empowers healthcare teams to save lives and reduce healthcare costs by helping hospitals follow evidence-based guidelines and recommendations. For more information, visit heart.org/quality.