Butler Memorial Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s
Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s
commitment and success in ensuring 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 achieved 75
percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke
Quality measures. This is the third time that Butler Memorial Hospital
has received this designation.
These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the
most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery
and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. They focus on appropriate
use of guideline-based care for stroke patients, including aggressive
use of medications such as clot-busting and anti-clotting drugs, blood
thinners and cholesterol-reducing drugs, preventive action for deep vein
thrombosis and smoking cessation counseling.
“Early recognition and treatment of a stroke is a key factor in recovering
from a stroke, says Melisse Maser, Neurology Service Clinical Coordinator.
Butler Memorial Hospital can begin treatment immediately in the Emergency
Room by administering tPA, a medication that dissolves clots.”
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association,
stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability
in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke
every 40 seconds, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes, and nearly
800,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
“Butler Memorial Hospital is working toward being certified as a
Primary Stroke Center,” says Maser. “Achieving the Stroke
Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award multiple times shows the importance
of this project and our commitment to the community.”
For more information on the stroke program at Butler Memorial Hospital,
visit the Stroke page under Services.
About Get With The Guidelines®
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s
hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with
tools and resources to increase adherence to the latest research-based
guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery,
Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 6 million patients
since 2001. For more information, visit
heart.org.
For more information contact
Connie Downs