Norwood Hospital Receives Get With The Guidelines - Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award

American Heart Association Award recognizes Norwood Hospital’s commitment to quality stroke care.

NORWOOD MA, JUNE 28, 2017 - Norwood Hospital received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® - Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

Hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines - Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods 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 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. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability. Norwood Hospital earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.

These quality measures are 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.

“A stroke patient loses 1.9 million neurons each minute stroke treatment is delayed. Our Emergency Department team has done an incredible job working with local EMS and other teams within the hospital to deliver advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said Kim Bassett, President of Norwood Hospital. “The recognition from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association further reinforces our team’s hard work and Norwood Hospital’s commitment to providing excellent care.”
“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Norwood Hospital for its commitment to stroke care,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines program.”

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the No. 5 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.

About Norwood Hospital:
Norwood Hospital is a full-service, 215-bed community hospital for adults and children with a focus on delivering world-class health care along with the latest advances in technology and treatment options. Norwood Hospital is part of the Steward Health Care System LLC, who owns and operates 18 community hospitals across four states, serves over 800 communities, and has more than 23,000 employees. The Steward network includes several thousand physicians who care for approximately 2 million patients annually. Additional information is available at www.norwood-hospital.org.

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 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.