BHS Stroke Center Earns National Quality Award

Beloit Health System receives Get with The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award

Beloit Health System’s Beloit Memorial Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award and the Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll award. These awards recognize the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines.

“Beloit Health System provides optimal care for our stroke patients. Implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke initiative has been an important part of our care plan,” said Sharon Cox, Vice President, Chief Nursing Officer, Beloit Health System. “The tools and resources provided help us track and measure our success in meeting evidenced-based clinical guidelines developed to improve patient outcomes.”

The hospital earned the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients. These measures include evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Before discharge, patients also receive education on managing their health, schedule a follow-up visit, as well as learn more about other care transition interventions.

In addition, the hospital received the association’s Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Award for meeting quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke.

“We are pleased to recognize Beloit Memorial Hospital for their commitment to stroke care,” said Eric E. Smith, M.D., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and an associate professor of neurology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the No. 5 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 and nearly 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 provides hospitals with tools and resources to increase adherence to the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.