Stroke Gold Plus Award Presented to South Nassau

Online, June 13, 2013 (Newswire.com) - The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association has awarded South Nassau Communities Hospital with a Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. This is the second consecutive year that the award has been given to South Nassau, which recently earned The Joint Commission's Advanced Certification for Primary Stroke Centers.

To earn the award, South Nassau achieved 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals, and achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care. These measures include appropriate and timely use of medications, such as antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis, cholesterol-reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

"To fulfill our mission to meet the patients' and communities' needs for quality, patient-centered healthcare services, South Nassau must always be focused on performance improvement and raising our standards," said Linda Efferen, M.D., chief medical officer.

In addition to the Get with the Guideline-Stroke award, South Nassau is a recipient of the association's Target: Stroke Honor Roll, for improving stroke care. To qualify for the honor roll, a minimum of 50 percent of the hospital's eligible ischemic stroke patients must have received tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as 'door-to-needle' time). A thrombolytic, or clot-busting agent, tPA is the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the urgent treatment of ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first few hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reverse the effects of stroke and reduce permanent disability.

Unfortunately, tPA therapy is not an option for patients who are having a hemorrhagic stroke (which is when a blood vessel in the brain leaks or bursts) or have one or more of the following conditions: bleeding ulcer, blood clotting problems, brain cancer, extremely high blood pressure, prior bleeding problems.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of serious, long-term disability. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 45 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every three minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

All of the major symptoms of stroke appear suddenly and without warning and they are often not painful. The most common symptoms of stroke can be remembered by the acronym FAST:
F = Face: Is one side of the face drooping down?
A = Arm: Can the person raise both arms, or is one arm weak?
S = Speech: Is speech slurred or confusing?
T = Time: Time is critical!! Call 9-1-1 immediately!

Other less common symptoms of stroke are sudden trouble seeing, sudden dizziness, and generalized weakness. If you or someone you are with is experiencing some or any of these symptoms, call 9-1-1 immediately.