Posted: 4/15/2015
Also re-designated by the state as Primary Level II Stroke facility
Parkland Health & Hospital System’s efforts in diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients earned recognition in the form of this year’s Stroke Gold Plus–Target: Stroke Elite Award through the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association.
The award places Parkland in a prestigious group of hospitals in the nation that participate in Get With The Guidelines and Target: Stroke. And, it comes just months after the Texas Department of State Health Services re-designated Parkland as a Primary Level II Stroke Facility. The designation is for Parkland’s ongoing commitment to providing quality care for stroke patients.
The importance of stroke prevention is the focus of Stroke Awareness Month, which is observed yearly during May. According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number four cause of death and a leading cause of adult 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.
As a state-designated stroke facility, Parkland is one of the few local hospitals providing continuous 24-hour advanced stroke care for both hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke. The state of Texas determines eligibility for designation as a primary stroke center based on whether the facility is in good standing with The Joint Commission, an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies U.S. health care organizations and programs. The state requires its primary stroke centers to maintain Joint Commission stroke center certification, which Parkland first obtained in 2008.
The Get With The Guidelines Stroke program helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Parkland earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients. These measures include aggressive use of medications and risk-reduction therapies aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
“Parkland is dedicated to improving and maintaining the quality of stroke care and The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke helps us achieve that goal,” said Jennifer Cross, RN, MSN, ACNS-BC, Parkland Stroke Program Coordinator. “With this award, our hospital demonstrates our commitment to ensure that patients receive care based on internationally-accepted clinical guidelines.”
She added that stroke care provided by physicians and staff members from the emergency department, neurology, pharmacy and radiology, and other departments, resulted in impressive door-to-intravenous thrombolytic therapy times of 60 minutes or less in 75 percent or more of applicable stroke patients treated with the clot busting medication IV tPA.
Get With The Guidelines–Stroke also helps Parkland’s staff implement prevention measures, which include educating patients to manage their risk factors and to be aware of warning signs for stroke, and ensuring they take their medications properly.
“We know that 80 percent of strokes can be prevented by controlling risk factors such as high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, which is a type of irregular heartbeat, smoking, diabetes and high cholesterol,” Cross said.
Cross said it is important to watch for stroke symptoms, which include a sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg especially on one side of the body, sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding, and sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes.
“If a person is having trouble walking, talking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination, and develops a sudden severe headache with no known cause, it’s important to call 9-1-1 immediately,” Cross added.
For more information about Parkland’s Stroke Program, visit www.parklandhospital.com/stroke.