Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center Receives Get With The Guidelines- Stroke Gold Plus with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Achievement Award

Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center receives the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines- Stroke Gold Plus with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke/brain attack patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center meets specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke/brain attack patients at a set level for a designated period. These measures include evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments aligned with the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. In order to safely transition to discharge; patients receive brain attack education with an emphasis on recognizing stroke symptoms, the importance of calling 911 and managing controllable risk factors to prevent future brain attacks. Patients are encouraged to set goals based on their individual risk factors so they can actively manage their health on the journey toward recovery. 

“Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our stroke patients by implementing the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke initiative,” said Teresa Urquhart, chief executive officer at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center. “The tools and resources provided help us track and measure our success in meeting evidenced-based clinical guidelines developed to improve patient outcomes.” 

Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center additionally received the Association’s Target: Stroke^SM Honor Roll Elite Gold Plus award. To qualify for this recognition, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke/brain attack is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.