Methodist Stone Oak Hospital Receives Prestigious Award from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for Advanced Stroke Care
Methodist Stone Oak Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
To receive the Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for at least 12 consecutive months and during the same period achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures.
To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite, 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. Methodist Stone Oak 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. This recognition further demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said Paul Hancock, M.D., chief medical officer for Methodist Healthcare System. “Methodist Stone Oak Hospital continues to strive for excellence in the acute treatment of stroke patients. The recognition from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke further reinforces our team’s hard work.”
“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Methodist Stone Oak 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.”
Get With The Guidelines®-S puts the expertise of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association to work for hospitals nationwide, helping hospital care teams ensure the care provided to patients is aligned with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal to save lives and improve recovery time, Get With The Guidelines®-S has impacted more than 3 million patients since 2003.
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 Methodist Stone Oak Hospital
Methodist Stone Oak Hospital opened in March 2009, was dubbed a Hospital of the Future and is providing cutting-edge technology to the residents of North Central San Antonio. Their services range from the high-tech such as advanced neurological, orthopedic and heart services, to award-winning women’s and maternity services, including a neonatal intensive care unit. With nearly 1,000 employees, it is part of the larger Methodist Healthcare System and handles 12,000 inpatients annually and 8,000 others for outpatient services. The emergency department handles 30,000 patients a year. The hospital just broke ground for a 100,000 square foot expansion to include 70 additional patient beds, a new inpatient rehab unit and a three-level parking garage. For the second year in a row, Methodist Stone Oak Hospital, along with the other Methodist Healthcare campuses, was recognized as a 2014 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission, and for the seventh time in a row was ranked This year the hospital has been ranked San Antonio’s best hospital in the San Antonio Express News Readers’ Choice Awards. For more information visit: www.StoneOakHealth.com.
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.