Saint Elizabeth Receives Get With The Guidelines®- Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award

LINCOLN, NE — Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines^®- Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the commitment and success of Saint Elizabeth in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.

To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award, Saint Elizabeth achieved at least 12 consecutive months of 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators and achieved at least 75 percent or higher compliance with 6 of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures.

These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award demonstrates that our staff is committed to providing care that has been shown to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols,” said Beth Malina, Stroke Program Coordinator.

“Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients,” 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.”

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.

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.

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Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center, founded more than 120 years ago, is a full-service, 260-bed nonprofit regional medical center in Lincoln, Nebraska. Saint Elizabeth has been selected as a Top 100 Hospital® in the nation by Thomson Reuters five times and has been recognized as a Magnet hospital for excellence in nursing since 2004.

Catholic Health Initiatives is a national nonprofit health organization with headquarters in Englewood, Colorado. The faith-based system operates in 19 states and includes 76 hospitals; 40 long-term care, assisted- and residential-living facilities; two community health-services organizations; two accredited nursing colleges; and home health agencies. In fiscal year 2011, CHI provided more than $612 million in charity care and community benefit, including services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. With annual revenues of more than $10.5 billion, CHI is the nation's second-largest Catholic health care system.

Catholic Health Initiatives organizations in Nebraska include Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, HealthConnect at Home serving Lincoln, Grand Island and Kearney, Nebraska Heart Hospital and Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center in Lincoln, Saint Francis Medical Center in Grand Island, St. Mary’s Community Hospital in Nebraska City and The Physician Network. Through its hospital facilities and The Physician Network, Catholic Health Initiatives in Nebraska provides full-service inpatient, outpatient and behavioral health care along with primary care and specialty physician services.

In the spirit of its founders, the ministries of CHI Nebraska provide not only medical care, but are community partners. Called by shared core values of reverence, integrity, compassion and excellence, these organizations devote funding and resources to programs and services that benefit the health of the greater community.

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 health care teams to save lives and reduce healthcare costs by helping hospitals follow evidence-based guidelines and recommendations. For more information, visit heart.org/quality.