The American Heart Association presents Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus award for commitment to prioritizing quality care for stroke patients
For a second consecutive year, McLaren Flint is the only Genesee County hospital to receive the four top awards for stroke care from the American Heart Association. These awards fall under the Get With The Guidelines® Gold Plus Stroke Quality Achievement Award for the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines.
Get With The Guidelines-Stroke was developed to assist health care professionals to provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines for treating stroke patients.
These guidelines include timeliness of treating stroke with medications or endovascular therapy (clot removal), stroke risk factor reduction, and post-stroke rehabilitation. Patients are also educated regarding managing their health after discharge, following up with their physician to monitor their underlying risk factors for stroke, and they are encouraged to participate in continued support for themselves and their families through the McLaren educational series and support group.
McLaren Flint additionally received the following recognitions:
- Target: StrokeSM Elite Plus award/ Target: Stroke Honor Roll Advanced Therapy 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.
- Target: Stroke Honor Roll Advanced Therapy award. For this award, hospitals successfully treated at least 50% of qualified stroke patients within 90 minutes of arriving directly to their facility and within 60 minutes of arriving by EMS transport.
- Target: Type 2 Diabetes 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.”
In late summer, McLaren Flint has also met specific scientific guidelines as a Comprehensive Stroke Center, featuring a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department.