ARMC Receives American Heart Association Achievement Award

Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (ARMC) has received the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association (AHA). The award recognizes ARMC’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted guidelines. This will be the first time that ARMC has been recognized with the Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award. Get With The Guidelines-Stroke helps the hospital’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes to improve patient care and outcomes. The program provides hospitals with a web-based patient management tool, best practice discharge protocols and standing orders, along with a robust registry and real-time benchmarking capabilities to track performance. The quick and efficient use of guideline procedures can improve the quality of care for stroke patients and may reduce disability and save lives. “We are pleased to recognize ARMC for its commitment to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and chief of Cardiology at VA Boston Healthcare System, senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Published scientific studies are providing us with evidence that Get With The Guidelines works. Patients are getting the right care they need when they need it. That is resulting in increased survival.” Following Get With The Guidelines-Stroke treatment guidelines, patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies including the use of medications such as tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), antithrombotics and anticoagulation therapy, along with cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation counseling. These are all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients. Hospitals must adhere to these measures at a set level for a designated period of time to be eligible for the achievement awards. “We are dedicated to making our care for stroke patients among the best in the country,” said ARMC Stroke Medical Director, Dr. Dan Miulli. "The AHA’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program helps us to accomplish this goal. This recognition demonstrates that we are on the right track and we are very proud of our team.”