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Mount St. Mary's earns Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver PlusQuality Achievement Award

by jmaloni
Thu, May 26th 2011 01:05 pm

Award demonstrates Mount St. Mary's commitment to quality care for stroke patients

Mount St. Mary's Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Mount St. Mary's commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.  

Mount St. Mary's is a Designated Stroke Center from the New York State Department of Health. To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, Mount St. Mary's achieved at least 12 consecutive months of 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators and achieved at least 75 percent or higher compliance with Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures during that same period of time, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.

These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol-reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

"With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award demonstrates that our staff is committed to providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols," said Dr. Gregory Sambuchi, head of neurology at Mount St. Mary's.

"Mount St. Mary's is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients," said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines national steering committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients."

Get With The Guidelines-Stroke uses the "teachable moment," the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their health care professionals' guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke.

Through Get With The Guidelines-Stroke, customized patient education materials are made available at the point of discharge, 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-Stroke patient management tool provides access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.

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