Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Receives Awards for Stroke Care
Two awards recognizing Stony Brook Medicine’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment were recently received from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Stony Brook University Hospital received the Get With the Guidelines Target: Stroke Advanced Therapy Honor Roll and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital received the Get With The Guidelines – Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. These awards honor the hospital’s commitment to stroke patients, based on nationally recognized, research-based guidelines using the latest scientific evidence.
“Stony Brook Medicine is dedicated to delivering the best care to our patients by implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke initiative,” said Kristie Golden, PhD, LMHC, CRC, the Associate Director of Operations, Neurosciences, Stony Brook University Hospital Administration Executive Staff. “The tools and resources provided help us monitor and measure our success utilizing the most up-to-date clinical guidelines developed to improve patient health outcomes.”
In order to win these awards, the hospitals had to meet specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients. “These measures include evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments aligned with the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Before discharge, patients should also receive education on managing their health, schedule a follow-up visit, as well as other care transition interventions,” said a statement from the hospital.
Stony Brook Southampton Hospital also received the Association’s Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll/Target: StrokeSM award. To qualify for this recognition, 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.”
“We are dedicated to improving the quality of care for our stroke patients by implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke initiative,” said Fredric I. Weinbaum, MD, the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. “The tools and resources provided help us track and measure our success in meeting evidenced-based clinical guidelines developed to improve patient outcomes.”
Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has also met specific scientific guidelines as a Primary Stroke Center or as a Comprehensive Stroke Center, featuring a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department, according to the statement.
“We are pleased to recognize Stony Brook Southampton Hospital for their commitment to stroke care,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., the national chairperson of the Quality Oversight Committee and Executive Vice Chair of Neurology, Director of Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number five cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
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