A recent news release issued by the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) Health Sciences reports that the UCLA Comprehensive Stroke Center at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has been given the Get With Guidelines-Stroke Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the center for implementing specific quality-improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for the treatment of stroke patients.
Get With Guidelines Stroke is designed to help hospital teams offer the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. The release notes that UCLA earned the award by meeting specific quality-achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period. According to the release, these measures encompass aggressive use of medications and risk-reduction therapies designed to reduce death and disability and improve the lives of stroke patients.
The release adds that UCLA also received the association’s Target: Stroke Honor Roll for meeting quality stroke measures that reduce the time between hospital arrival and treatment with the clot-bluster tPA.
Jeffrey Saver, MD, director of the UCLA Stroke Center and professor of neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, emphasizes the center’s commitment to improving the quality of stroke care, noting “The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke helps us achieve that goal. With this award, our hospital demonstrates our commitment to ensure that our patients receive care based on internationally respected clinical guidelines.”
“We are pleased to recognize UCLA for their commitment and dedication,” says Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, national chairman of Get With Guidelines steering committee, executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
The release reports that Get With The Guidelines–Stroke also assists UCLA’s staff in implementing prevention measures, including educating stroke patients to manage their risk for stroke and to be aware of the warning signs for stroke, and ensuring they take their medications properly. Hospitals have the ability to make customized patient education materials available upon discharge, based upon the patients’ individual risk profiles. These materials are written in an easy-to-understand format in English or Spanish.
The UCLA Comprehensive Stroke Center, the release adds, is recognized as a leading center for the management of cerebral vascular disease. It treats simple and complex vascular disorders by incorporating recent developments in emergency medicine, stroke neurology, microneurosurgery, interventional neuroradiology, stereotactic radiology, neurointensive care, neuroanesthesiology, and rehabilitation neurology.
[Source(s): Newswise, UCLA Health Sciences]
