St. Lukes The Woodlands Hospital received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Associations Get With The Guidelines Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award.
The award recognizes the hospitals commitment and success in implementing excellent care for stroke patients.
SLWH also was recognized in 2012 by the American Stroke Association with the Get With The Guidelines Stroke Bronze Quality Achievement Award.
These prestigious awards are truly the result of the outstanding vision and leadership of our medical staff. Over the last 18 months, we have made a concentrated effort to not just meet, but to exceed the measures set forth by the American Stroke Association, said Debra Sukin, CEO of St. Lukes The Woodlands Hospital. Our stroke program as an essential component of our neuroscience program, which also encompasses clinical, intervention, surgical core and gamma knife treatment. We are proud to be recognized.
The hospital achieved an 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators for 12 consecutive months and also achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures the reporting initiatives that measure quality of care.
These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as antithrombiotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
In addition to the Get With The Guideline-Stroke Award, St. Lukes The Woodlands has been recognized as a recipient of the associations Target: Stroke Honor Roll, for improving stroke care. Over the past quarter, at least 50 percent of the hospitals eligible ischemic stroke patients have received tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as door-to-needle time). A thrombolytic, or clot-busting agent, tPA is the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the urgent treatment of ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reverse the effects of stroke and reduce permanent disability.
St. Lukes The Woodlands 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, Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee. 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.
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.
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St. Luke’s recognized for care of stroke patients