MONTEREY PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Garfield Medical Center has received the Get With The GuidelinesStroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The award recognizes Garfield Medical Centers commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted guidelines.
This marks the third year in a row that Garfield Medical Center has been recognized with a quality achievement award.
Get With The GuidelinesStroke helps Garfield Medical Centers staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes to improve patient care and outcomes. The program provides hospitals with a web-based patient management tool, best practice discharge protocols and standing orders, along with a robust registry and real-time benchmarking capabilities to track performance.
The quick and efficient use of guideline procedures can improve the quality of care for stroke patients and may reduce disability and save lives.
Recent studies show that patients treated in hospitals participating in the American Heart Associations Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program receive a higher quality of care and may experience better outcomes, 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, Mass. Garfield Medical Centers team is to be commended for their commitment to improving the care of their patients.
Following Get With The Guidelines-Stroke treatment guidelines, patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies including the use of medications such as tPA, antithrombotics and anticoagulation therapy, along with cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation counseling. These are all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients. Hospitals must adhere to these measures at a set level for a designated period of time to be eligible for the achievement awards.
Garfield Medical Center is dedicated to making our care for stroke patients among the best in the country. The American Heart Associations Get With The GuidelinesStroke program helps us to accomplish this goal, said David Batista, Garfield Medical Centers Chief Executive Officer. The program recognizes care that is consistent with the latest scientific guidelines from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. This recognition demonstrates that we are on the right track and were very proud of our team.
According to the American Heart Association/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.
Other awards received by Garfield Medical Center in recent years include:
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Garfield Medical Center Receives American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality ...