Elkin, NC – October 14, 2021 – Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital has received the American Heart Association’s Silver Plus Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Quality Achievement Award for their commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines.
Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the U.S. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year. Early stroke detection and treatment are key to improving survival, minimizing disability and speeding recovery times.
Get With The Guidelines – Stroke was developed to assist healthcare professionals to provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines for treating stroke patients.
A team member representing the Hugh Chatham Stroke Team stated, “Even with the challenges of 2020, the Stroke Team (consisting of all staff from the Emergency Department, ICU, Stroke Neuro, Lab, Imaging, Rehab, Home Health and Stroke Transitional Post-Acute care) was able to protect our team’s mission: To preserve and restore quality of life close to home through community outreach, education, and providing the best care to patients presenting with stroke symptoms.”
Each year program participants apply for the award recognition by demonstrating how their organization has committed to providing quality care for stroke patients. In addition to following treatment guidelines, participants also provide education to patients to help them manage their health and rehabilitation once at home.
“We are pleased to recognize Hugh Chatham for their commitment to stroke care,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., national chairperson of the Quality Oversight Committee and Executive Vice Chair of Neurology, Director of Acute Stroke Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”
Hugh Chatham also received the Association’s Target: StrokeSM Elite Honor Roll award. To qualify for this recognition, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke.
Additionally, Hugh Chatham received the Association’s Target: Type 2 Honor Roll award. To qualify for this recognition, hospitals must meet quality measures developed with more than 90% of compliance for 12 consecutive months for the “Overall Diabetes Cardiovascular Initiative Composite Score.”
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Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital (www.hughchatham.org) is a not-for-profit community health care network of physician clinics and an 81-bed acute care hospital that delivers high quality, convenient health care to residents of the Yadkin Valley and Foothills region of North Carolina and parts of southwestern Virginia. Employing more than 1,000 team members, Hugh Chatham includes a medical group of more than 60 providers across 24 locations and six counties. Headquartered in Elkin, North Carolina, Hugh Chatham is a leader in using technology to coordinate care for patients and to make healthcare more accessible, and cost-effective.
About Get With The Guidelines®
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with tools and resources to increase adherence to the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 9 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org/quality.
