Media Contact: Kristen Longo
(516) 465-2607
klongo@nshs.edu

GREAT NECK, NY – Eleven North Shore-LIJ Health System hospitals have received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines ® Stroke Quality Achievement Award, recognizing the hospitals’ successes in implementing the highest standards of stroke care in accordance with evidence-based treatment guidelines.

To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement Award each hospital achieved 12 to 24 consecutive months of 85 percent or higher adherence to all stroke performance achievement indicators. These measures included: aggressive use of medications, such as tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, a clot-busting drug, and other therapies; interventions to prevent deep vein thrombosis, administration of cholesterol reducing drugs and a review of smoking cessation techniques with patients. All the protocols are designed to reduce death and disability, and improve the lives of stroke patients.

North Shore-LIJ hospitals received the following awards:

Gold Plus Quality Achievement Awards (adherence for 24 or more consecutive months)

Silver Quality Achievement Award (adherence for 12 consecutive months)
Lenox Hill Hospital

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost,” said Richard Libman, MD, chair of North Shore-LIJ’s stroke task force and chief of vascular neurology at LIJ Medical Center. “Receiving the demonstrates that our highly-trained staff is committed to providing care that has been clinically proven to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols.” As New York State-designated stroke centers, all eleven hospitals have multidisciplinary stroke teams available 24 hours a day to assess and treat stroke patients.

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. Additionally, the number of patients eligible for stroke care is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and an aging population.

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 show 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. Our hospitals provide customized education materials to patients when they are discharged, based on their individual risk profiles.

For more information on Get With The Guidelines, visit www.heart.org/quality or for information about stroke prevention and treatment visit www.northshorelij.com/NSLIJ/Neurovascular+and+Stroke+Institute