Sacred Heart Hospital Receives

American Stroke Association’s Silver Award

EAU CLAIRE, WI —Sacred Heart Hospital has received the American Stroke Association’s “Get With The Guidelines” Silver Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes the 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.

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Silver Performance Achievement Award addresses the important element of time,” said Jeannie Pittenger, CNRN, Assistant Director, Neurosciences/Pediatrics, and Stroke Program Coordinator. “It’s all about the patient. By promoting the latest evidence-based treatment for stroke patients, ‘Get With The Guidelines’ helps improve health and save lives.”

Launched in 2000 to support and facilitate the improvement of the quality of care of patients, “Get With The Guidelines” is sponsored by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. The need for quality improvement programs is well established. According to the American Stroke Association, each year approximately 700,000 people suffer a stroke. Stroke remains the third leading cause of death and the first leading cause of disability in the United States.

“Sacred Heart Hospital has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the Emergency Medical & Trauma Center or with symptom onset while hospitalized for another reason,” commented Phillip Porter, MD, FRCS(C), with Medical X-Ray Consultants, OakLeaf Medical Network, and a neurosurgeon at the Brain & Spine Institute. “This includes always being equipped to provide  the highest level of brain imaging studies, having neurologists and neurosurgeons available to conduct  emergent patient evaluations and using clot-busting medications or clot extraction devices when appropriate.”

To receive the Silver Performance Achievement Award, Sacred Heart Hospital consistently complied for at least one year with the requirements in the “Get With The Guidelines” Stroke program. These include aggressive use of medications like tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs, and smoking cessation.

“The American Stroke Association commends Sacred Heart Hospital for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said Lee H. Schwamm, MD, national “Get With the Guidelines” Steering Committee Member and director of acute stroke services at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital. “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.”

###

Sacred Heart Hospital is an affiliate of the Hospital Sisters Health System. Since 1889 it has been meeting patient needs in western Wisconsin with the latest medical innovations and technology, together with a Franciscan whole-person healing tradition.