Raritan Bay Medical Center’s Emergency Medical Transport fleet is pictured at the hospital’s Perth Amboy location. Photo submitted by RBMC.

RBMC Receives Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award

–Award demonstrates Raritan Bay Medical Center commitment to quality care for stroke patients –

News Release –

PERTH AMBOY, NJ, May 7, 2015 – Raritan Bay 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 hospital’s commitment and success in ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines which have been established from the latest scientific evidence.  The medical center has also met specific scientific guidelines as a N.J. State designated Primary Stroke Center featuring a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients.  Raritan Bay Medical Center has held this designation since 2006.

To receive the Silver Plus Quality Achievement award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all of the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for at least 12 consecutive months and during the same period achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures.

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

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and this achievement award demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that our patients receive care based on nationally-recognized and respected clinical guidelines,” said Board Certified Neurologist and Medical Director, RBMC Stroke Center Eric J. Uhrik, MD.  “Raritan Bay Medical Center is highly dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and following the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality measures help us achieve that goal.”

“We are pleased to recognize Raritan Bay Medical Center for their commitment to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce length of stay and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparities in care.”

For providers, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Program offers quality-improvement measures, discharge protocols, standing orders and other measurement tools. Providing hospitals with resources and information that make it easier to follow treatment guidelines which can help save lives and ultimately reduce overall healthcare costs by lowering readmission rates for stroke patients.

For patients, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they learn how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital and recognize the F.A.S.T. warning signs of a stroke.  The mnemonic/acronym F.A.S.T. aids people in remembering the sudden signs of a stroke; F= face drooping, A= arm weakness, S= speech difficulty and T= time to call 9-1-1.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number five cause of death and a leading cause of adult 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.