Accepting the Quality Achievement Award for Stroke Care is Lea Susan Ojamaa, Director of the Division of Prevention and Wellness at the Department of Public Health, Nancy Couts, Director of Rehabilitation Services at Mount Auburn Hospital, Watertown’s Marie McCune, RN Stroke Nurse Coordinator at Mount Auburn Hospital and Lisa Bemben, Senior Director of Quality & Systems Improvement at the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association.
Mount Auburn Hospital has been honored for its stroke care by a national organization.
Mount Auburn Hospital has received the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold-Plus, Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for the treatment of stroke patients, according to an announcement from the hospital.
Get With The Guidelines-Stroke helps hospital teams provide the most current, research-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Mount Auburn Hospital earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated time period. These measures include aggressive use of medications and risk-reduction therapies aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
“Mount Auburn Hospital is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke helps us to achieve that goal,” said Jeanette Clough, President and CEO of Mount Auburn Hospital. “With this award, our hospital demonstrates our commitment to ensure that our patients receive care based on internationally-respected clinical guidelines.”
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number five cause of death, and a leading cause of adult 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.
Get With The Guidelines-Stroke also helps Mount Auburn Hospital’s staff implement prevention measures, which include educating stroke patients to manage their risk factors and to be aware of warning signs for stroke, and ensuring they take their medications properly.
Hospitals can make customized patient education materials available upon discharge, based on the patients’ individual risk profiles. The take-away materials are written in an easy-to- understand format in either English or Spanish.