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Hoag Hospital Receives American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines Gold Performance Achievement Award
The American Stroke Association recently awarded Hoag Hospital’s Neurosciences Center of Excellence its Get With The GuidelinesSM–Stroke (GWTG–Stroke) Gold Performance Achievement Award at the association’s International Stroke Conference 2009. The award recognizes Hoag’s continued commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.
“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the GWTG–Stroke Gold Performance Achievement Award addresses the important element of time,” said David Brown, MD, medical director of Hoag’s Stroke Program, a program within Hoag Neurosciences Institute. “With Hoag’s Code 20 program and the highest quality of inpatient care, Hoag Hospital provides patients with immediate treatment at the first sign of distress in order to achieve the best outcomes after stroke.”
In place since January 2008, Code 20 aims to provide patients arriving at Hoag’s emergency department presenting with signs of stroke with an initial triage assessment, lab testing, and neuro imaging within 20 minutes of their arrival; surpassing the national suggested benchmark of 30 minutes.
To receive the GWTG-Stroke Gold Performance Achievement Award, Hoag Hospital consistently maintained this level of performance for at least two years, complying with the requirements in the GWTG–Stroke program, which include aggressive use of “clot busting” medications like tPA, anticoagulation therapy, followed by important supportive acute rehabilitation physical and speech therapy -if needed - and evidence- based supportive care such as pneumonia prevention, prophylaxis against deep vein thrombosis, cholesterol reducing drugs, and smoking cessation education.
“The American Heart Association is pleased to recognize its top Get With The Guidelines participants,” said Gregg C Fonarow, M.D., national chairman, Get With The Guidelines steering committee and director, Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center. “The program makes it easier for hospitals like Hoag to provide appropriate evidence-based care and ultimately improve the quality of life and help reduce the number of deaths in these heart and stroke patients.”
“The number of acute ischemic stroke patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and a large aging population,” said Dr. Brown. “Hoag is well equipped and committed to providing the highest level of stroke care to this growing patient population. And the GWTG-Stroke Gold Performance Achievement Award further confirms that we are among the best stroke centers in the nation in our compliance with implementation of evidence-based therapies for acute stroke, which help to ensure the best outcomes for stroke patients.” Hoag’s Neurosciences Institute also provides more advanced stroke interventions available only at comprehensive stroke centers such as image guided minimally invasive interventions performed within the arteries like clot extraction, coil occlusion of ruptured aneurysms, and other neurointerventional procedures.
About Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian is a 498-bed, not-for-profit, acute care hospital located in Newport Beach, Calif. Fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and designated as a Magnet hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), Hoag offers a comprehensive mix of health care services, including Centers of Excellence in cancer, heart and vascular, neurosciences, orthopedics and women’s health. National Research Corporation has endorsed Hoag as Orange County’s most preferred hospital for the past 13 consecutive years. And for an unprecedented 13 years, residents of Orange County have chosen Hoag as the county’s best hospital in a local newspaper survey.
About GWTG
Get With The GuidelinesSM (GWTG) 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. Experience has shown that 80,000 lives could be saved annually if the coronary artery disease (GWTG-CAD) module alone was implemented nationwide. For more information, visit americanheart.org/getwiththeguidelines.
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