Memorial Hospital West Achieves National Stroke Award Designation
“PEMBROKE PINES, FLA – Memorial Hospital West has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite Plus designation. This achievement, a second for Memorial Healthcare System, recognizes its commitment to emergency stroke care to ensure that stroke patients receive optimal treatment according to nationally recognized, evidence-based guidelines.
Memorial Regional Hospital was recognized for this level of achievement in 2015 for its excellence in stroke care and earned the Target Stroke Elite-Plus award again this year. To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and 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 Elite Plus, 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. Memorial Hospital West earned the award by meeting specific quality benchmarks for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.