The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award was recently presented to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, reports a recent news release. The release notes that the award comes as a nod to UCLA’s commitment and success in implementing care for stroke patients in accordance to evidence-based guidelines.

The UCLA Stroke Center at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center reportedly achieved an 85% or higher adherence to all Get With the Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and achieved 75% or higher compliance with six of ten Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care. These efforts ultimately allowed the organization to qualify for and receive the award, the release states.

The release also notes that UCLA received the association’s Target: Stroke Honor Roll, in recognition of its improvement in “door-to-needle” time, with at least 50% of the hospital’s eligible ischemic stroke patients receiving tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital. 

Jeffrey L. Saver, MD, UCLA Stroke Center director, professor of neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, adds that, “With a stroke, time lost is brain lost…We will continue with our focus on providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols.”

Lee H. Schwamm, MD, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee, director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, commends UCLA for its commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients, “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,” Schwamm says.

According to the release, customized patient education materials are made available upon discharge via Get With The Guidelines-Stroke based on patients’ individual risk profiles. The Get With The Guidelines Patient Management Tool, the release notes, also offers health care providers with access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.

For more information on these guidelines, click here

Source: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences