Perth Amboy, NJ (PRWEB) November 25, 2013
Raritan Bay Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®–Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The award recognizes Raritan Bay Medical Center’s (RBMC) commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted guidelines. This marks the fourth year that RBMC has been recognized with a quality achievement award.
Get With The Guidelines–Stroke helps RBMC’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. “Recent studies show that patients treated in hospitals participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program receive a higher quality of care and may experience better outcomes,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. “Raritan Bay Medical Center’s team is to be commended for their commitment to improving the care of their patients.”
Following the Get With The Guidelines for stroke, patients are started on aggressive therapy and risk-reduction protocols including the use of medications such as 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.
“Raritan Bay Medical Center is dedicated to making our care for stroke patients among the best in the country. The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program helps us to accomplish this goal,” said neurologist Rafiya Khakoo, MD, medical director of the RBMC Stroke Center. “This recognition demonstrates that we are on the right track and we’re very proud of our team.”
According to the American Heart Association, stroke is the 4th leading cause of death and the number one cause of 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.
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About Raritan Bay Medical Center
With hospitals in Old Bridge and Perth Amboy Raritan Bay Medical Center (RBMC) is a New Jersey state-designated primary stroke center, a recipient of the American Stroke Association and American Heart Association Get with the Guidelines® - Stroke Silver Plus and Heart Failure Gold Performance Achievement Awards, recognizing the optimal care of stroke and heart failure patients. The hospital is one of less than seven percent of hospitals nationally to achieve re-designation as a Magnet Hospital, recognizing nursing excellence, and is ranked in the top 10 percent of New Jersey hospitals in surgical care according to the 2012 NJ Hospital Performance Report. Among its flagship programs are the Human Motion Institute, a comprehensive musculoskeletal program, and Institute for Weight Loss, specializing in bariatric surgery. For more information, visit rbmc.org.
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.