UR Medicine Honored for Stroke Care

UR Medicine’s Strong Memorial Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s (AHA/ASA) highest award for stroke care, including a new designation that recognizes excellence in rapid care that can save lives and improve the quality of life of stroke victims. 

“In stroke care, time equals brain,” said Curtis Benesch, M.D., medical director of the UR Medicine’s Comprehensive Stroke Center. “This award recognizes the discipline and training that is required to provide appropriate and timely care to stroke patients and our team strives each and every day to provide the most comprehensive, cutting-edge care for patients from across upstate New York.”

“This award reflects the commitment of our team to providing the highest level of care possible for our patients who’ve suffered a stroke,” said Babak Jahromi, M.D., surgical director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center. “The outstanding group of nurses, therapists, and physicians that we have assembled are dedicated to this common goal.”

Strong has been named a Get With The Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus. The award recognizes the hospitals commitment and success ensuring that stroke patients received 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.

To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus, hospitals 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. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability.

“We are pleased to recognize Strong Memorial Hospital for their commitment to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce length of stay and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparities in care.”

According to AHA/ASA, stroke is the number five cause of death and a leading cause of adult 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.

Global Administrator | 8/13/2015

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