Baptist Health Floyd receives Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target Stroke Honor Roll Elite
American Heart Association recognizes Baptist Health Floyd's commitment to quality stroke care
New Albany, IND. (June 6, 2017) – Baptist Health Floyd received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
Hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures to receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.
To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite, 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 only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability. Baptist Health Floyd 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 quality measures are designed to help hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.
“We are proud to receive the highest attainable award for the treatment of stroke patients. This recognition demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said Baptist Health Floyd Stroke Director, Vishnumurthy Hedna, MD. “Our average time from when a patient comes through the door to the time we administer tPA is just over 42 minutes, which beats the national average. The recognition from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke further reinforces our team’s hard work.”
Baptist Health Floyd has also met specific scientific guidelines as a Primary Stroke Center, featuring a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department.
“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Baptist Health Floyd for its commitment to stroke care,” said Paul Heidenreich, MD, MS, national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines program.”
Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke puts the expertise of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association to work for hospitals nationwide, helping hospital care teams ensure the care provided to patients is aligned with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal to save lives and improve recovery time, Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke has impacted more than 3 million patients since 2003.