SAN BERNARDINO>> Dignity Health - St. Bernardine Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
This prestigious award recognizes the hospital’s success in ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment, as established by nationally recognized, research-based guidelines that are based on the latest scientific evidence.
“This award is a testament to the hard work and commitment of our highly-skilled medical team,” states Julie Sprengel, SVP of Operations for Dignity Health Southern California. “St. Bernardine is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Associations’ Get With The Guidelines-Stroke helps us achieve that goal.”
To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, St. Bernardine had to achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods. During that same period, the hospital 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, 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.
St. Bernardine earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.
These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes, and nearly 800,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
About Dignity Health – St. Bernardine Medical Center
Serving the health care needs of the people of the Inland Empire since 1931, Dignity Health St. Bernardine Medical Center is a highly-regarded 342-bed, nonprofit, tertiary acute care hospital located in San Bernardino, California. The hospital offers a full continuum of services, from family care to heart surgery, treating an average of 72,000 individuals in the Emergency Department, delivering 2,100 babies and admitting more than 17,000 patients for treatment each year. Visit dignityhealth.org/stbernardinemedical for additional information.