CMMC receives American Heart Association Award for quality stroke care

Central Maine Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

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

To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85% or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and also achieve 75% or higher compliance with five of eight stroke quality measures.

These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. They focus on appropriate use of guideline-based care for stroke patients, including aggressive use of medications such as clot-busting and anti-clotting drugs, blood thinners and cholesterol-reducing drugs, preventive action for deep vein thrombosis and smoking cessation counseling.

“A stroke patient loses 1.9 million neurons each minute stroke treatment is delayed. This recognition further demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” Dr. Peter Tilney, CMMC Emergency Department co-medical director, said in a news release.

Tilney said the recognition from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association “further reinforces our team’s hard work.”

Dr. Paul Heidenreich, national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and professor of Medicine at Stanford University, said research shows that hospitals adopting the Get With The Guidelines program Research are working to align patient care with the latest research-based guidelines for stroke care.