Memorial Receives Quality Awards for Stroke Care and Earns State’s Seal of Approval

Memorial Health System of East Texas has received the Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association.  Memorial was also recently designated as a Primary (Level II) Stroke Facility by the Texas Department of State Health Services.  This award and designation recognizes Memorial’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted guidelines.

This is just one of the many quality achievement awards Memorial has received and the second year in a row to receive the Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.
“We are committed to providing aggressive, proven stroke care for the community we serve,” said Gary Looper, Memorial President and CEO. “This award and designation demonstrates our commitment by recognizing the steps we have taken and are taking to treat stroke patients.”

Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke helps Memorial’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guidelines and processes to improve patient care and outcomes.  The program provides hospitals with a web-based patient management tool, best practice discharge protocols and standing orders, along with a robust registry and real-time benchmarking capabilities to track performance.

The quick and efficient use of guidelines procedures can improve the quality of care for stroke patients and may reduce disability and save lives.

“Recent studies show that patients treated in hospitals participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines – Stroke program receive a higher quality of care and may experience better outcomes,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., 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, Mass.  “Memorial’s team is to be commended for their commitment to improve the care of their patients.”

“The Stroke Gold Plus Award is the highest level of recognition given by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.” Angela Hess, Stroke Program Clinical Coordinator at Memorial Health System said.  “This is the second year in a row that our organization has been recognized with this award.  This demonstrates that Memorial is providing the best care possible according to guidelines set by the American Heart Association.”

Following Get With The Guideline – Stroke treatment guidelines, patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies including the use of medications such as tPA, antithrombotics and anticoagulation therapy, along with cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation counseling.  These are all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.  Hospitals must adhere to these measures at a set level for a designated period of time to be eligible for the achievement awards.
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.