SACRAMENTO - Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, designated an Advanced Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission, received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines(r)-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award during a presentation Tuesday. The award recognizes Sutter Medical Center's commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted guidelines.
"Recent studies show that patients treated in hospitals participating in the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program receive a higher quality of care and may experience better outcomes," said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chairman of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee. "Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento is to be commended for implementing nationally recognized standards of care and protocols for treating stroke 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.
"With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award demonstrates our commitment to being one of the top hospitals in the country for providing proven, effective, quick stroke care," said Carrie Owen Plietz, CEO of Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento.
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.
Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, a Truven Analytics Top 100 Hospitals winner for 2013, is a regional center for high-level medical care and includes two acute-care hospitals - Sutter General and Sutter Memorial - and a psychiatric hospital, Sutter Center for Psychiatry. It is currently constructing a new Women's and Children's Center at its midtown Sacramento campus that will open in 2014. For more information on Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento, its services and expansion project, visit http://www.suttermedicalcenter.org.
Get With The Guidelines(r) is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's hospital-based quality improvement program that empowers healthcare teams to save lives and reduce healthcare costs by helping hospitals follow evidence-based guidelines and recommendations. For more information, visit http://www.heart.org/quality.
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Sutter Medical Center Awarded for Stroke Care