Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Bronze Quality Achievement Award
(Greenwood, SC, Nov. 19, 2012) –Self Regional Healthcare has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Bronze Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Self Regional’s higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.
“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines Stroke Bronze Quality Achievement Award addresses the important element of time,” said Rusty Deason, Self Regional’s stroke coordinator. “We are committed to constantly improving our stroke program, and recognize that our patient population is at an elevated risk of stroke. Our goal is to save as many lives as possible through prevention and treatment.”
Self Regional has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department. This includes always being equipped to provide brain imaging scans, having neurologists available to conduct patient evaluations and using clot-busting medications when appropriate. The health system is actively working toward certification as a primary stroke center.
Rusty Deason, Self Regional’s stroke coordinator
“We commend Self Regional Healthcare for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the national Get With the Guidelines Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients.”
Stroke Statistics
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, long-term disability in the United States. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
South Carolina is ranked as one of the states with the highest stroke death rates in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control. South Carolina, along with other Southern states including North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, have the highest adjusted death rates in the nation.
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