Tri-City Medical Center has been named to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Target:Stroke Honor Roll for its rapid stroke care. The honor roll recognition comes as Tri-City Medical Center also earned its fourth straight Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.
The honor roll recognition means at least 50 percent of eligible ischemic stroke patients at Tri-City Medical Center receive IV rt- PA (TPA or “stroke buster” medication) within 60 minutes of arriving (known as ‘door-to-needle’ time), assessed on a quarterly basis.
“Tri-City Medical Center is committed to providing excellent, fast stroke care. I am extremely proud of the physicians, nurses and staff that have consistently exceeded these high standards and helped produce the best outcomes for our stroke patients,” said Larry Anderson, CEO of Tri-City Medical Center.
Tri-City Medical Center is one of three medical centers in San Diego County as of March 2013 to receive the prestigious honor roll distinction.
“Recent studies show that patients treated in hospitals participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program receive a higher quality of care and may experience better outcomes,” said Lee H.Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. “The Tri-City Medical Center team is to be commended for their commitment to improving the care of their patients.”
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause of serious, long-term disability. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 45 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every three minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
