Sacred Heart Hospital Earns American Stroke Association’s Gold Award

Sacred Heart Hospital recently received the American Stroke Association’s “Get With The Guidelines” Gold Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations. To receive the Gold Performance Achievement Award, Sacred Heart Hospital consistently complied for 24 consecutive months with the requirements in the Get With The Guidelines Stroke program. These include aggressive use of medications like tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs, and smoking cessation. 

Last fall, the hospital’s stroke program obtained recertification by the Joint Commission as a Primary Stroke Care Center. 

Launched in 2000 to support and facilitate the improvement of the quality of care of patients, “Get With The Guidelines” is sponsored by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. The need for quality improvement programs is well established. According to the American Stroke Association, each year approximately 700,000 people suffer a stroke. Stroke remains the third leading cause of death and the first leading cause of disability in the United States.