WHITE PLAINS, NY — For the twelfth year in a row, White Plains Hospital has been recognized with the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. This Award recognizes the Hospital’s success in ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
White Plains Hospital also attained the Association’s Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll for meeting stroke quality measures that reduce the time between a 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. If administered within the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and reduce the chance of permanent disability.
Hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive years and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures to receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.
To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, hospitals must meet quality measures designed to help hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.
“Knowing the signs of a stroke – facial drooping, slurred speech, arm weakness – and getting immediate medical assistance can lessen the devastating effects on brain function and one’s ability to recover,” said Michael Palumbo, M.D., Executive Vice President and Medical Director at White Plains Hospital. “This Award demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced stroke care to patients in Westchester and surrounding areas quickly and safely.”
The Ruth & Jerome A. Siegel Stroke Center at White Plains Hospital is Westchester County’s first New York State designated Regional Stroke Center, indicating the Hospital’s ability to diagnose and treat strokes using a highly specialized stroke team.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fifth leading cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes, and nearly 800,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
“We are pleased to recognize White Plains Hospital for their commitment to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce length of stay and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparities in care.”
