CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – UNC Health Care is pleased to announce that five of its hospitals – Nash UNC Health Care, Pardee UNC Health Care, UNC Hospitals, UNC REX Healthcare and Wayne UNC Health Care –  have received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

In addition, a sixth UNC Health Care Hospital – UNC Lenoir Health Care – received the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award. These awards recognizes the hospitals’ commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines founded on the latest scientific evidence.

The six hospitals earned these awards 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. Before discharge, patients should also receive education on managing their health, get a follow-up visit scheduled, as well as other care transition interventions.

“UNC Health Care is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our stroke patients by implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke initiative,” said David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the UNC Hospitals Stroke Center. “The tools and resources provided help us track and measure our success in meeting evidence-based clinical guidelines developed to improve patient outcomes.”

In addition, five UNC Health Care hospitals received Target: Stroke Honor Roll Awards.

UNC Hospitals received the association’s highest recognition – Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus award. To qualify for this recognition, 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.

UNC REX Healthcare received the Target: Stroke Elite award, while Nash UNC Health Care, UNC Lenoir Health Care and Wayne UNC Health Care received the Target: Stroke award.

“We are pleased to recognize UNC Health Care’s six hospitals for their commitment to stroke care,” said Eric E. Smith, M.D., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and an associate professor of neurology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. “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.”

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S. and a leading cause of adult disability. 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.

 

About UNC Health Care

UNC Health Care is an integrated health care system comprised of UNC Hospitals and its provider network, UNC Faculty Physicians, UNC Physicians Network, the clinical patient care programs of the UNC School of Medicine, and ten other hospitals and hospital systems across the state: UNC REX Healthcare, Chatham Hospital, Johnston Health, Pardee Hospital, High Point Regional Health, Caldwell Memorial, Nash Health Care, Wayne Memorial, UNC Lenoir Health Care, and UNC Rockingham Health Care.

 

About Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke

Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with tools and resources to increase adherence to the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke has touched the lives of more than 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.