NCH stroke program earns award for quality of care
Northwest Community Healthcare has received the 2016 American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award and was named to the Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll for providing stroke patients with the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines.
"Being honored for excellent patient care is the best recognition a hospital can receive," NCH CEO Steve Scogna says. "By following best practices, NCH is dramatically impacting the lives of our stroke patients and demonstrating its commitment to quality care.
"This marks the sixth straight year NCH has received the Get With The Guidelines achievement award and the second straight year NCH was named to the Target: Stroke Honor Roll."
To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines - Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines - Stroke Quality measures.
To qualify for the Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll, NCH met 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.
If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability. NCH earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fifth leading cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the U.S. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and someone dies of a stroke every four minutes.