MedStar Montgomery Medical Center Receives Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award for Stroke Care and Target: Stroke (SM) Honor Roll Designation

The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success in ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

MedStar Montgomery Medical Center has received the Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award along with the Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll designation from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® program. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success in ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

“This recognition demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said Thomas J. Senker, FACHE, president of MedStar Montgomery. “It’s a true testament to the hard work of our stroke team.”

To receive the Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence with all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for at least 12 consecutive months and, during the same period, achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality measures

To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. If given in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability.

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association commend MedStar Montgomery 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.”

Get With The Guidelines helps hospital care teams ensure the care provided to patients is aligned with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal to save lives and improve recovery time, Get With The Guidelines has impacted more than six million patients since 2001.

Stroke is the fifth most common cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States according to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. 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.

MedStar Montgomery Medical Center is a 138-bed not-for-profit hospital serving the greater Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas. A proud member of MedStar Health, MedStar Montgomery is committed to delivering the latest in modern medicine and medical technology.