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Stroke Association Awards Silver Cross

)- Silver Cross Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award.  The award recognizes Silver Cross Hospital’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.

 

To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, Silver Cross Hospital 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, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.

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These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

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In addition to the Get With The Guideline-Stroke award, Silver Cross Hospital has also been recognized as a recipient of the association’s Target: Stroke Honor Roll, for improving stroke care. Over the past quarter, at least 50 percent of the hospital’s eligible ischemic stroke patients have received tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as ‘door-to-needle’ time). A thrombolytic, or clot-busting agent, tPA is the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the urgent treatment of ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reverse the effects of stroke and reduce permanent disability.

 

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award demonstrates that our staff is committed to providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols,” said Dr. Kathleen McCahill, Medical Director of the Silver Cross Stroke Program

 

“Silver Cross Hospital is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., 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 take-away materials are written in an easy-to-understand format and are 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.

 

“The time is right for Silver Cross Hospital to be focused on improving the quality of stroke care by implementing Get With The Guidelines-Stroke. The number of acute ischemic stroke patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and a large aging population,” said Dr. McCahill.

 

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, long-term disability in the United States. 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.

 

Free Lecture

Dr. Harish Shownkeen, Medical Director of Neuro Interventional Surgery at Silver Cross, will discuss the signs, latest minimally invasive treatment and recovery options for new and recurrent strokes. This free program - Spot a Stroke FAST! - will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 3 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Silver Cross Hospital Conference Center, Pavilion A, 1890 Silver Cross Blvd., New Lenox. Call 1-888-660-HEAL (4325) or visit www.silvercross.org to register.

 

About The Silver Cross Neuroscience Institute

The Silver Cross Neuroscience Institute features a team of some of the most experienced specialists in the Chicago area, offering the full continuum of care that includes preventing strokes, halting them in their path, and providing the necessary rehabilitation to get stroke victims back on their feet and back to their lives.  Whether it’s Thrombolytic drugs, tPA, or a life-saving procedure in Silver Cross Hospital’s new state-of-the-art neurointerventional suite, our stroke patients receive all the care they need all under one roof.  The hospital’s latest addition is a biplane angiography system to diagnosis and treat strokes and other neurological diseases.   But what really sets the Silver Cross Neuroscience Institute apart from other programs is the ability to not only diagnosis and treat stroke but also recover patients right here at Silver Cross.  Silver Cross has partnered with The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), which has been ranked the “Best Rehabilitation Hospital in America” by U.S. News & World Report every year since 1991.  Stroke patients benefit from RIC at Silver Cross’ new 24-bed inpatient rehabilitation unit as well as four outpatient facilities—at the hospital, Homer Glen, New Lenox (Route 30) and West Joliet. For a Free Stroke Awareness Kit, call 1-888-660-HEAL (4325) or visit www.silvercross.org.

 

About Silver Cross Hospital

Silver Cross Hospital is a not-for-profit health care provider serving Will County and southwest suburban communities since 1895. Silver Cross has been recognized as a Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals National Award winner for seven consecutive years and as a Hospital of Choice by the American Alliance of Healthcare Providers. With over 3,000 employees, physicians and volunteers, Silver Cross operates a 289-bed acute care hospital and 9 satellite facilities providing outpatient services and physician offices. Silver Cross opened a state-of-the-art replacement hospital on February 26, 2012 at I-355 and Route 6 in New Lenox. To learn more about Silver Cross Hospital or a referral to a physician on staff, visit www.silvercross.org or call 1-888-660-HEAL (4325).

 

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.

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