BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) — Boca Raton Community Hospital has received another major award — making it, we believe, the most awarded medical facility in the greater Boca Raton area. This time, Boca Regional is honored with the an American Heart Association award for stroke care.
According to the AHA and Boca Regional:
Boca Raton Regional Hospital has again received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the Hospital’s commitment and success in implementing a higher level of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations. This represents the second year in a row that the Hospital has been so honored.
To receive the Award, Boca Regional achieved at least 12 consecutive months of 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators and achieved at least 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures during that same period of time, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.
These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
“With a stroke, time is essential and the Quality Achievement Award demonstrates that our staff is committed to providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols,” said Douglas DeOrchis, MD, Interventional Radiologist at Boca Raton Regional Hospital.
“Boca Raton Regional Hospital is to be commended for its 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,” the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their healthcare professionals’ guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second event. Customized patient education materials are made available at the point of discharge, based on patients’ individual risk profiles.
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.
“The care of stroke patients will be an integral part of our new Marcus Neuroscience Institute,” said Charles Posternack, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Boca Regional. “It is most gratifying to us to have the quality of our stroke program recognized in such an important way.”
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