PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
3-Jun-2014
Contact: Michael Burton michael.burton@heart.org 214-706-1236 American Heart Association
Chinese stroke patients were less likely to acquire pneumonia or die from the stroke when hospitals followed treatment guidelines, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014.
Closer adherence to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines-Stroke led to a drop in pneumonia from 20 percent to almost 5 percent.
However, only 55.5 percent of patients received all guideline-recommended treatments for which they were eligible.
Developed with the goal to save lives and hasten recovery, Get With The Guidelines programs have touched the lives of nearly 5 million patients since 2001. Studies show that consistent application of these programs can lead to better recoveries and lower risks of ending up back in the hospital.
"In China, stroke is the major cause of death and long-term disability and improving the quality of stroke care is a national priority," said Zixiao Li, M.D., the study's lead author and a neurologist at Capital Medical University's teaching hospital in Beijing, Beijing Tiantan Hospital. "Practitioners should make efforts to increase adherence to all stroke performance measures."
Researchers looked at 24,597 stroke patients in 221 Chinese hospitals from January 2012-February 2013. They found that:
Several factors contribute to the low rate of tPA use, Li said:
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Chinese stroke patients fare better when hospitals follow guidelines