NAPA, Calif. (July 5, 2022) – Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center recently received the American Heart Association’s Get with the Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus award and was listed on the Target Stroke Elite Plus Honor Roll. This is the highest award a hospital can receive from the American Heart Association Get with the Guidelines Stroke program.
“We are incredibly proud of our caregivers who have been recognized by the American Heart Association for ensuring our patients have the best possible chance of survival after a stroke,” said Terry Wooten, chief executive at Queen of the Valley Medical Center. “These awards showcase our commitment to consistently ensuring stroke patients receive the treatment they need, quickly.”
Get With The Guidelines was developed to provide providers with the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines for treating stroke patients. AHA Stroke Gold Plus awardees must achieve a variety of goals consistently over a period of time.
To be named on the Stroke Honor Roll-Elite Plus, hospitals must keep the time to thrombolytic therapy within 60 minutes in 75 percent or more of acute ischemic stroke patients treated with IV tPA. In addition, hospitals must keep the time to thrombolytic therapy within 45 minutes in 50 percent of acute ischemic stroke patients treated with IV tPA. Queen of the Valley not only achieved both these benchmarks but exceeded them with 88.9 percent of patients receiving thrombolytic therapy within 30 minutes.
“We are pleased to recognize Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., national member and past chairperson of the Quality Oversight Committee for the AHA and neurologist and vice president of telehealth for Massachusetts General Hospital. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.
Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the U.S. 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. Early stroke detection and treatment are key to improving survival, minimizing disability and speeding recovery times.
In September 2021, Queen of the Valley announced a generous $5.1M gift from the Winiarski Family Foundation to create the Winiarski Stroke and Diagnostics Center immediately adjacent to the Emergency Department (ED). The center will be a great enhancement in providing critical care for the 30,000 trauma, stroke and patients with emergent needs who are treated in the Queen’s ED annually. Learn more at providence.org/queen.
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