Each hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes UC Health’s commitment to and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that every stroke patient receives treatment according to nationally accepted recommendations and standards.
UC Medical Center is home to Greater Cincinnati’s only adult Comprehensive Stroke Center, and West Chester Hospital is a Primary Stroke Center. This is the sixth year UC Medical Center has received the AHA/ASA designation and the second year for West Chester Hospital.
“During a stroke, we know better than most how seconds and minutes matter. We are proud to provide the highest level of stroke care and clinical research to help more patients recover and return to living their lives,” said Dawn Kleindorfer, MD, co-director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center at the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute and a professor of neurology and associate dean at the UC College of Medicine. “This recognition is a testament to the outstanding clinical care and research that our team provides each day.”
Additionally, UC Medical Center also received Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus recognition and West Chester Hospital received Target: Stroke Honor Roll recognition for implementing quality measures to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA. The drug is the only treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for ischemic stroke, and it was developed in part by researchers at the UC College of Medicine.
UC Medical Center and West Chester Hospital earned the recognition by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period. These measures include evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments aligned with the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.
Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the U.S., according to the AHA/ASA. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.