SwedishAmerican, a division of UW Health is proud to announce it has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With the Guidelines Stroke Sliver Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: Stroke Honor Roll. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success in ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to the nationally recognized, researched-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
To receive the Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for at least 12 consecutive months and during the same period achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures.
Hospitals that qualify 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. These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovering and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.
“A stroke patient loses 1.9 million neurons each minute stroke treatment is delayed. This recognition further demonstrates SwedishAmerican’s commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” says SwedishAmerican Stroke Medical Director Dr. Jason Layman. “SwedishAmerican continues to strive for excellence in the acute treatment of stroke patients and this recognition and achievement further reinforces our team’s hard work.”
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.
About SwedishAmerican
A division of UW Health, SwedishAmerican is dedicated to providing excellence in healthcare and compassionate care to the community. The organization serves residents of 12 counties in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin through a dedicated and caring staff, a major acute care hospital and a free-standing outpatient cancer center in Rockford, a medical center in Belvidere, a network of 30 primary care and multi-specialty clinics and the region’s largest home healthcare agency. Additionally, SwedishAmerican has achieved Magnet® recognition as a reflection of its nursing professionalism, teamwork and superiority in patient care.
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.