Press Releases: Southern California
May 30, 2012
Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center Receives Get with the Guidelines® – Stroke Silver Quality Achievement Award
WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Silver Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Woodland Hills Medical Center’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.
“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines – Stroke Silver Quality Achievement Award addresses the important element of time,” said Marko Petrovic, MD, director of stroke care. Woodland Hills Medical Center has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department. This includes always being equipped to provide brain imaging scans, having neurologists available to conduct patient evaluations and using clot-busting medication when appropriate.
To receive the Get With The Guidelines – Stroke Silver Quality Achievement Award, Woodland Hills Medical Center consistently complied for at least one year with the requirements in the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program. These include aggressive use of medications like tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation. This 12-month evaluation period is the second in an ongoing self-evaluation by the hospital to continually reach the 85 percent compliance level needed to sustain this award.
“The American Stroke Association commends Woodland Hills Medical Center for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said Lee H. Schwamm, MD, 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. “The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients.”
Get With The Guidelines – Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their health care professionals’ guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke. Through Get With The Guidelines – Stroke, customized patient education materials are made available at the point of discharge, based on patients’ individual risk profiles. The take-away materials are written in an easy-to-understand format and are available in English and Spanish. In addition, the Get With The Guidelines Patient Management Tool provides access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.
“The time is right for Woodland Hills Medical Center to be focused on improving the quality of stroke care by implementing Get With The Guidelines – Stroke. The number of acute ischemic stroke patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and a large aging population,” said Betsy Diep, RN, CEN, stroke coordinator.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, 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.
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 www.heart.org/quality.
About Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center
Established in 1986, Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center provides high-quality primary and specialty care to more than 200,000 members throughout the West San Fernando Valley and Ventura County. Our Woodland Hills Medical Center offers several Centers of Excellence, including our Breast Center, Craniofacial Clinic, Children’s Center for Attention Problems, and in the areas of diabetes care and high-risk obstetrics. Woodland Hills Medical Center is also home to a robust Family Medicine Residency Program and Community Medicine Fellowship Program, whose talented young physicians use their skills to improve the health and quality of life of the most vulnerable citizens in our surrounding communities. For more information, visit us online at www.kp.org/woodlandhills.
About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high quality, affordable health care services to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 3.5 million members in Southern California. Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills currently serves about 200,000 members in the West San Fernando Valley and Ventura County. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: www.kp.org/newscenter.
