Falmouth Hospital Honored for Stroke Care

Cape Cod Hospital and have each earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®- Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. This award is the highest in the Association’s Get With The Guidelines program. It recognizes each hospital’s commitment and success in implementing excellence in stroke care for patients, according to evidence-based guidelines.

To receive the award, Falmouth Hospital and Cape Cod Hospital each achieved 85 percent of higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals. Each hospital also achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures. The measures are reporting initiatives to measure quality care.

These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation. All are aimed at reducing death and disability, and improving the lives of stroke patients.

“Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital are to be commended for their commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, MD, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients.”

Get With The Guidelines-Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” which is the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their healthcare professional’s guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce the risk of a second heart attack or stroke.

Customized patient education materials are made available upon discharge from the hospital, based on patients’ individual risk profiles.

“We are proud that Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital have been recognized for their excellent stroke care,” said CCHC CEO Mike Lauf. “The Get With The Guidelines Gold Plus Stroke Award honor exemplifies how a concerted team effort can produce quality outcomes. Everyone involved in the care, treatment and education of our stroke patients is to be commended, not only for this achievement, but for saving and improving the lives of so many people.”

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.

Information from a press release.