Virtua Memorial Earns 7th Consecutive Award for Treatment of Stroke Patients

Virtua Memorial Hospital has received the Get With the Guidelines®- Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for the seventh consecutive year. This award recognizes Virtua’s success in ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

“Earning this award for seven consecutive years is a testament to Virtua Memorial’s leadership in the rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients,” said Virtua President and CEO Richard P. Miller. “Our physicians and nurses are committed to implementing the Get With the Guidelines® Program to ensure that our patients receive care based on these clinical guidelines developed to reduce the incidences of death and disability, and improve the lives of stroke patients.”

To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures.

These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. They focus on appropriate use of guideline-based care for stroke patients, including aggressive use of medications such as clot-busting and anti-clotting drugs, blood thinners and cholesterol-reducing drugs, preventive action for deep vein thrombosis and smoking cessation counseling. 

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Virtua Memorial 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.”

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fifth leading 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.