Aspirus St. Luke's Recognized With Quality Achievement Award for Stroke Care

Aspirus St. Luke's has received the Get With The Guidelines^® Stroke Bronze Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association for the treatment of stroke patients. This marks the first year that Aspirus St. Luke's has been recognized with a stroke care quality achievement award.

Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Aspirus St. Luke's earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period. These measures include aggressive risk-reduction therapies aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

"Aspirus St. Luke's is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care, and the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program helps us to accomplish this goal," said Dr. Christopher Delp, Aspirus St. Luke's stroke director and emergency physician. "With this award, we're demonstrating our commitment to ensure our patients receive care based on internationally respected clinical guidelines."

"We are pleased to recognize Aspirus St. Luke's for their commitment and dedication 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 patients' length of stays and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparity gaps in care."

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death and a leading cause of adult 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.