The Mount Sinai Stroke Center Receives "Get with the Guidelines Stroke Silver Plus Quality" Achievement Award
Award Demonstrates Mount Sinai’s Commitment to Quality Care for Stroke Patients
The Mount Sinai Stroke Center, located at both Mount Sinai’s Manhattan and Queens facilities, has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes The Mount Sinai Hospital’s commitment to and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.
"Mount Sinai’s multidisciplinary Stroke Center offers the most advanced medical therapies and neurosurgical techniques to treat and prevent strokes," said Wayne Keathley, President and Chief Operating Officer, The Mount Sinai Hospital. "We are proud to receive this award as it demonstrates our staff’s commitment to providing quick and efficient care with evidence-based protocols to our stroke patients."
To receive the Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, Mount Sinai achieved at least 12 consecutive months of 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality achievement indicators and achieved at least 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality measures during that same period of time.
These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
"This award testifies to the superb teamwork displayed by our staff in Manhattan and Queens in delivering the best possible care to our stroke patients on a consistent basis," said Stanley Tuhrim, MD, Director of The Mount Sinai Stroke Center and Professor of Neurology and Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
"The Mount Sinai Hospital is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients," said Lee H. Schwamm, MD, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients."
Get With The Guidelines-Stroke uses the "teachable moment," the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their healthcare professionals’ guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke. Through Get With The Guidelines-Stroke, customized patient education materials are made available at the point of discharge, based on patients’ individual risk profiles. The materials are written in an easy-to-understand format and available in English and Spanish. In addition, the Get With The Guidelines patient management tool provides access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care. Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, long-term disability in the United States, according to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
About The Mount Sinai Medical Center
The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of the leading medical schools in the United States. The Medical School is noted for innovation in education, biomedical research, clinical care delivery, and local and global community service. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 14 research institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and by U.S. News & World Report.
The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and one of the nation’s oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. In 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked The Mount Sinai Hospital 16th on its elite Honor Roll of the nation’s top hospitals based on reputation, safety, and other patient-care factors. Of the top 20 hospitals in the United States, Mount Sinai is one of 12 integrated academic medical centers whose medical school ranks among the top 20 in NIH funding and US News & World Report and whose hospital is on the US News & World Report Honor Roll. Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 560,000 outpatient visits took place.
For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/.
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About Get With The Guidelines
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that empowers healthcare teams to save lives and reduce healthcare costs by helping hospitals follow evidence-based guidelines and recommendations. For more information, visit heart.org/quality.