CHI St. Luke’s Health hospitals recognized by the American Heart Association for Quality Stroke Care

HOUSTON, Texas — CHI St. Luke’s Health–Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center (Baylor St. Luke’s) and CHI St. Luke’s Health?The Woodlands Hospital have received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award with Target: Stroke SM Honor Roll Elite Plus. The award recognizes both hospitals’ commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

CHI St. Luke’s Health is the only healthcare system in the Houston area with two certified Comprehensive Stroke Centers. Both hospitals, Baylor St. Luke’s and CHI St. Luke’s Health–The Woodlands Hospital, have also met specific guidelines as Comprehensive Stroke Centers that feature a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department.

“This is a tremendous honor for CHI St. Luke’s. We’re extremely proud to receive this prestigious award for two of our Greater Houston hospitals,” said Jose Suarez, MD, Head of Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care at Baylor College of Medicine and Stroke Medical Director at Baylor St. Luke’s and CHI St. Luke’s Health–The Woodlands Hospital. “We continue to strive for excellence in the acute treatment of stroke patients within the communities we serve. This recognition from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association further reaffirms our team’s hard work.”

Baylor St. Luke’s has been consecutively recognized by the American Stroke Association each year since 2010. In addition to the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Achievement Award, the hospital has maintained the Target: Stroke designation since 2011.

Last year, CHI St. Luke’s Health–The Woodlands Hospital received the Silver Plus and Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite awards and has now excelled to Gold Plus and Elite Plus status. The hospital also is one of Montgomery Country’s leaders in neurological diagnosis and treatment.

To receive the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus - Target: Stroke SM Honor Roll Elite Plus award, hospitals must:

• Achieve 85 percent or higher compliance with all Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Achievement Measures for two or more consecutive years (Gold)

• Achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five or more Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Quality Measures for one or more consecutive years (Plus)

• Achieve door-to-needle times of 60 minutes or less in at least 75 percent of eligible acute ischemic stroke patients, and achieve door-to- needle times of 45 minutes or less in at least 50 percent of eligible acute ischemic stroke patients (Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus)

These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams follow the most current, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognizes Baylor St. Luke’s and CHI St. Luke’s Health–The Woodlands Hospital for their commitment to stroke care,” said Paul Heidenreich, MD, MS, National Chairman, Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines program.”

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 in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes, and nearly 800,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.