Virtua Memorial receives Get With The Guidelines - Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award
Virtua Memorial in Mt. Holly, NJ has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Virtua’s commitment and success in implementing excellent care for stroke patients, according to evidence-based guidelines.
To receive the award, the hospital achieved 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.
These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients. With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award demonstrates commitment for providing aggressive, proven stroke care with evidence-based protocols. 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.
Get With The Guidelines–Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their healthcare professionals’ guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke.
Through Get With The Guidelines–Stroke, customized patient education materials are made available at the point of discharge, based on patients’ individual risk profiles. The take-away materials are written in an easy-to-understand format and are available in English and Spanish. In addition, the Get With The Guidelines Patient Management Tool gives healthcare providers access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.
The time is right to be focused on improving the quality of stroke care by implementing Get With The Guidelines–Stroke. The number of acute ischemic stroke patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and a large aging population.
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.
About Get With The Guidelines
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that empowers healthcare teams to save lives and reduce healthcare costs by helping hospitals follow evidence-based guidelines and recommendations. For more information, visit heart.org/quality.
Virtua is a comprehensive multi-hospital healthcare system headquartered in Marlton, NJ. Its mission is to deliver a world-class patient experience through its programs of excellence in cancer treatment, cardiology, orthopaedics, women's health, pediatrics, surgery, neuroscience and wellness. A non-profit organization, Virtua employs 8,400 clinical and administrative personnel, and approximately 1,800 physicians serve as medical staff members. Virtua has distinguished itself as one of the first Six Sigma organizations in healthcare, as an early adopter of clinical and digital technologies, and for its innovative partnerships with nationally renowned organizations such as
GE Healthcare,
Fox Chase Cancer Center and
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). It has been honored twice with the New Jersey Governor's award for Clinical Excellence and recognized with the Leadership Award for Outstanding Achievement by Voluntary Hospitals of America. Virtua has been honored as the #1 Best Employer in the Delaware Valley by the
Philadelphia Business Journal and is the recipient of the Consumer Choice Awards by National Research Corporation. Virtua is proud to be the official southern New Jersey sponsor of the Go Red for Women and Start! Walking Movements. For more information, visit
www.virtua.org or call 1-888-VIRTUA-3 (1-888-847-8823).