St. Luke's receives American Stroke Associations Get With the Guidlines Silver Performance Achievement Award
February 11, 2008
St. Luke’s has been awarded The American Stroke Association Get With The GuidelinesSM–Stroke (GWTG–Stroke) Silver Performance Achievement Award at the association’s International Stroke Conference.
The award recognizes St. Luke’s 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 Award addresses the important element of time,” said Dr. Ryan Sundermann, St. Luke’s Emergency Department director. St. Luke’s has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department. This includes always being equipped to provide brain imaging scans, having neurologists available to conduct patient evaluations and using clot-busting medications when appropriate.
To receive the GWTG-Stroke Silver Performance Achievement Award, St. Luke’s consistently complied for at least one year with the requirements in the GWTG–Stroke program. These include aggressive use of medications like tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs, and smoking cessation. This twelve-month evaluation period is the second in an ongoing self-evaluation by the hospital to continually reach the 85 percent compliance level needed to sustain this award.
According to the American Stroke Association, each year approximately 780,000 people suffer a stroke — 600,000 are first attacks and 180,000 are recurrent. Of stroke survivors aged 49 and older, 21 percent of men and 24 percent of women die within a year. For those aged 70 and older, the percentages are even higher.
