North Fulton Hospital recently received the American Stroke Association’s Get With The GuidelinesSM–Stroke Gold Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes North Fulton Hospital’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment for at least 24 months according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.
This designation (along with the hospital’s two Gold Performance Achievement Awards for Heart failure and Coronary Artery Disease) places North Fulton Hospital in an elite category. According to the American Heart Association, North Fulton Hospital is one of only two hospitals in the state of Georgia to receive this level of award in all three AHA Get With The GuidelinesSM programs. In the Greater Southeast Affiliate, there are only six hospitals at this level.
“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Gold Performance Achievement Award addresses the important element of time,” said Debbie Keel, North Fulton Hospital CEO. North Fulton Hospital has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department. This includes always being equipped to provide brain imaging scans, having neurologists available to conduct patient evaluations and using clot-busting medications when appropriate.
To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Performance Achievement Award, North Fulton Hospital demonstrated 85% adherence in the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke key measures for 24 or more consecutive months. These include aggressive use of medications like tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol-reducing drugs, and smoking cessation.
“The American Stroke Association commends North Fulton Hospital for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., Vice-Chair of the national Get With the Guidelines Steering Committee and Vice-Chair of the Neurology department and director of 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 North Fulton 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 CEO Debbie Keel.
According to the American Stroke Association, each year approximately 795,000 people suffer a stroke — 610,000 are first attacks and 185,000 are recurrent. Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States is suffering from a stroke. This deadly condition accounts for 1 out of every 18 deaths in the United States.
Read more about North Fulton Hospital’s commitment to quality here.
North Fulton Hospital (NFH), part of Tenet Georgia, is a 202-bed, acute-care hospital located on Highway 9, Alpharetta Highway, in Roswell. Opened in 1983, NFH serves North Fulton and surrounding counties through its team of over 1000 employees, 400 staff physicians and 200 volunteers. NFH is a state-designated Level II trauma center and provides a continuum of services through its centers and programs, including neurosciences, orthopedics, rehabilitation, surgical services, bariatric surgical weight loss, gastroenterology and oncology. The hospital is fully accredited and also is certified as a Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency.