Oak Lawn, Ill. -- Advocate Christ Medical Center, which has one of the largest stroke programs in the state of Illinois and is designated a primary stroke center by DNV Healthcare, again has been recognized for excellence in the treatment of stroke patients by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA).
The Association has selected the medical center and its Neurosciences Institute for another Stroke Gold Quality Achievement Award in recognition of the institution’s ongoing commitment to evidence-based stroke-care guidelines under the AHA/ASA Get With The Guidelines® program, said Melvin Wichter MD, co-director of the Neurosciences Institute and chair of the medical center’s neurology department. Get With The Guidelines provides the most up-to-date, research-based care standards to speed recovery and reduce death and disability among stroke patients.
To earn the award, the Christ Medical Center stroke team had to meet specific, quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period of time. These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, and cholesterol-reducing drugs, as well as smoking-cessation education – all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
In addition to the Gold Award, the medical center has made the AHA/ASA’s Target: Stroke Honor Roll for following stroke quality measures that reduce the time between a patient’s arrival at the hospital and the onset of treatment using the clot-buster, tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. People who suffer a stroke and receive tPA within three hours of the start of symptoms may recover more quickly and be less likely to suffer severe disabilities, experts say.
“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost. The Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Quality Achievement Award demonstrates Christ Medical Center’s commitment to being one of the leading hospitals in the country for providing aggressive, proven stroke care,” said Franco Campanella DO, medical director of the Christ medical Center stroke program. “We intend to continue our focus on providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to treat patients quickly and efficiently with evidence-based protocols.”
Advocate Christ Medical Center is a leader in stroke care in Illinois, treating an estimated 1,200 stroke patients annually and offering a variety of advanced treatment options. According to the AHA/ASA, stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and a major contributor to adult disability in the United States. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, and someone dies of a stroke every four minutes. Some 795,000 Americans experience a new or recurrent stroke every year.
“We are pleased to recognize Advocate Christ Medical Center for its commitment and dedication to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, national chair of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee, executive director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Studies have shown that hospitals consistently following Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce patients’ length of stays and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparity gaps in care.”
Get With The Guidelines—Stroke also helps hospital staff implement prevention measures, such as educating stroke patients to manage their risk factors and be aware of warning signs for stroke and ensuring that patients take their medications properly. Hospitals can make customized patient education materials available upon discharge, basing the information on patients’ individual risk profiles. The takeaway materials are written in easy-to-understand format in either English or Spanish.
“The number of acute ischemic stroke patients who are eligible for treatment is expected to grow during the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and a large aging population,” Dr. Campanella said. “We will continue to use Get With The Guidelines – Stroke in enhancing the overall quality of our stroke care.”
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About Advocate Christ Medical Center
Advocate Christ Medical Center is part of Advocate Health Care, which is one of the nation’s leading health care networks. A not-for-profit, 694-bed, premier teaching institution with more than 1,000 affiliated physicians, Christ Medical Center is a leader in health care and one of the major referral hospitals in the Midwest in a number of specialties, including cardiovascular services, heart and kidney transplantation, neurosciences, oncology, orthopedics and women’s health. The hospital also has one of the busiest Level I trauma centers in Illinois providing emergency care for more than 90,000 patient visits annually and is a leader in breakthrough technologies, including eICU® (electronic intensive care unit) monitoring, robotic da Vinci Surgery System® and CyberKnife® Radiosurgery. For the last three years (2012-2014), the medical center has been named to the Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals® list. U.S. News & World Report has ranked the medical center among the nation’s leading providers for cardiology and heart surgery and for geriatric medicine and ranked it overall as being among the top hospitals in Illinois. The hospital is also recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) as a Magnet Center. Magnet status represents the highest honor in the nursing profession. To obtain more information or to visit our newsroom, log on to: www.advocatehealth.com/christ.