Charlotte Regional Medical Center Receives American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award

Award demonstrates Charlotte Regional’s commitment to quality care for stroke patient

PUNTA GORDA, FL (October 9, 2013 ) – Charlotte Regional Medical Center  has received the Get With The Guidelines^®–Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The award recognizes Charlotte Regional’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted guidelines.

This marks the second year that Charlotte Regional has been recognized with a quality achievement award.

“Stroke care has always been a major focus for Charlotte Regional, but we’ve really excelled in the last year,” said Gayle O'Brien, RN, MSN, CPHQ, CPHRM, director of Quality and Education at Charlotte Regional Medical Center. “We have striven to implement national best practices for outstanding care for our stroke patients. The Gold Plus recognition by the American Heart Association gives us affirmation that we are providing excellent care to our community and that our stroke team is of the highest caliber.”

Get With The Guidelines–Stroke helps Charlotte Regional’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes to improve patient care and outcomes. The program provides hospitals with a web-based patient management tool, best practice discharge protocols and standing orders, along with a robust registry and real-time benchmarking capabilities to track performance.

The quick and efficient use of guideline procedures can improve the quality of care for stroke patients and may reduce disability and save lives.

“Recent studies show that patients treated in hospitals participating in the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program receive a higher quality of care and may experience better outcomes,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., 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, Mass. “Charlotte Regional’s team is to be commended for their commitment to improving the care of their patients.”

Following Get With The Guidelines-Stroke treatment guidelines, patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies including the use of medications such as tPA, antithrombotics and anticoagulation therapy, along with cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation counseling. These are all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients. Hospitals must adhere to these measures at a set level for a designated period of time to be eligible for the achievement awards.

“Charlotte Regional Medical Center is dedicated to making our care for stroke patients among the best in the country. The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program helps us to accomplish this goal,” said Jose Morillo, CEO at Charlotte Regional. “This recognition demonstrates that we are on the right track and we’re very proud of our team.”

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 Charlotte Regional Medical Center
Located in Punta Gorda, Charlotte Regional Medical Center is a full-service hospital dedicated to abiding by the mission of: Caring professionals dedicated to serving our community. Founded in 1947, 208-bed Charlotte Regional is Joint Commission Accredited and an award-winning hospital, with stroke services, orthopedics and respiratory programs earning national distinction. Charlotte Regional Medical Center is now part of Bayfront Health; 6,000 professionals in seven hospitals across five counties, united to bring state-of-the-art care to Florida's Gulf communities. For more information, visit www.CharlotteRegional.com.

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 heart.org/quality.