"With a stroke, time lost is brain lost," says Fadi Nahab, assistant professor of neurology, Emory School of Medicine and medical director of the stroke program at Emory University Hospital.
Emory University Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Emory University Hospital's success in implementing excellent care for stroke patients, according to evidence-based guidelines.
To receive the award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals, as well as achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.
These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
"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 aggressive, proven stroke care," says Fadi Nahab, assistant professor of neurology, Emory School of Medicine and medical director of the stroke program at Emory University Hospital. "We will continue with our focus on providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols."
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.
"The time is right for us to be focused on improving the quality of stroke care by continuing to implement Get With The Guidelines," says Nahab. "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."
Emory University Hospital also was named a Target: Stroke Honor Roll site by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. This award recognizes achieving a door-to-needle time of 60 minutes or less for at least 50 percent of patients eligible for the clot-busting medication tPA (Activase).