Intermountain Medical Center Honored for Stroke Care

MURRAY, UT (4/5/11) – Intermountain Medical Center, which treats more stroke patients than any other Utah hospital, has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s “Get With The Guidelines” award for delivering excellent, evidence-based care for stroke patients.

The hospital received the program’s “Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award” for achieving 85 percent or higher adherence with all of the program’s stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals, and 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 guidelines that measure stroke quality of care.

Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of serious, long-term disability, according to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, someone dies of a stroke every three minutes, and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

In addition to the award, Intermountain Medical Center has also been recognized as a recipient of the association’s “Stroke Honor Roll” for improving stroke care. Over the past quarter, at least 50 percent of eligible ischemic stroke patients have received IV rt-PA thrombolytic therapy within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as door-to-needle time).

“With a stroke, lost time means more brain tissue is damaged and may or may not recover, and the Stroke Gold Plus Award demonstrates our commitment to being one of the top hospitals in the country for providing aggressive, proven stroke care,” says David Grauer, Intermountain Medical Center’s administrator. “This is great corroboration of our effort to be a model for how care should be provided, personally, regionally, and nationally. We have terrific clinical protocols in place and wonderful professionals who are committed to helping us treat stroke patients with the best possible evidence-based care.”

Intermountain Medical Center is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of care andprotocols for treating stroke patients, says Lee Schwamm, MD, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of 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," says Schwamm.