Woodland, CA, July 15, 2010
– Woodland Healthcare was awarded the 2010 American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get with the Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award for providing excellent stroke care for patients.
Woodland Healthcare has been certified by the Joint Commission as a Primary Stroke Center since 2006 and is one of six Catholic Healthcare West hospitals that make up the Mercy Neurological Institute of Greater Sacramento.
To receive this award, Woodland Healthcare achieved 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Performance Achievement Indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 stroke quality measures.
These measures include aggressive use of medications such as tPA, anti-thrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
“We like to say time is brain in the treatment of stroke,” said Dominic M. Erba, MD, medical director, quality resource management at Woodland Healthcare. “The faster we can diagnose and treat patients, the better the outcomes. This award demonstrates our commitment to being one of the top hospitals in the country for providing aggressive, proven stroke care and we will continue with our focus on providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols.”
“Woodland Healthcare is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, MD, 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 healthcare 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 Patient Management Tool gives healthcare providers access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.
This is the third Get with the Guidelines Stroke Award for Woodland Healthcare. In 2009, the hospital received a Get With The Guidelines Silver Performance Achievement Award. Earlier this year, Woodland Healthcare was awarded with the Get With The Guidelines Silver Plus Performance Achievement Award.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of serious, long-term disability. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 45 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every three minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
For more information on Get With The Guidelines, visit http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthcareProfessional/GetWithTheGuidelinesHFStroke/Get-With-The-Guidelines---HFStroke_UCM_001099_SubHomePage.jsp.
