NCH stroke program earns award
Northwest Community Healthcare has received the 2015 American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award and was named to the Target: Stroke Honor Roll.
The award recognizes NCH's commitment and success ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
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: Stroke Honor Roll, hospitals must meet 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.
The NCH Stroke Program, in a partnership with Northwestern University Medicine, unveiled in 2014 the telestroke program, which provides patients and their families with 24/7 access to Northwestern neurologists through interactive videoconferencing via webcams.
In a matter of minutes, the neurologist can review the CT scan taken in the ED and determine whether the patient meets criteria for receiving tPA. The real-time access to the neurologist allows NCH patients to receive advanced comprehensive stroke treatment when time is the most critical.
With the new telestroke program, NCH patients have waited, on average, 54 minutes from the time they entered the emergency department to the time they received treatment with IV-tPA. The 54-minute average exceeds the 60-minute goal established by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
NCH averages about 400 stroke patients per year and has 12 neurologists and three neurointerventional radiologists on staff. The addition of the telestroke program gives patients 24/7 access to neurologists who can make the rapid diagnosis that is needed when time is critical for a best possible recovery.
"With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and this award demonstrates our commitment to ensuring patients receive care based on nationally respected clinical guidelines," said Janice Lau, stroke program coordinator at NCH.
"NCH is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines - Stroke helps us achieve that goal."
For providers, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke offers quality improvement measures, discharge protocols, standing orders and other measurement tools. Providing hospitals with resources and information that make it easier to follow treatment guidelines can help save lives and ultimately reduce overall health care costs by lowering readmission rates for stroke patients.
For patients, Get With The Guidelines - Stroke uses the "teachable moment," the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they learn how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital and recognize the FAST warning signs of a stroke.
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; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
For information, visit www.nch.org.