By the time you finish reading this article, another person in the United States will likely have suffered a stroke.
In fact, on average, someone has a stroke every 40 seconds in the U.S., which means nearly 795,000 individuals suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year*. Consequently, stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the country and a leading cause of adult disability.
When a stroke does occur, fast medical intervention is essential. That’s because blood flow to the brain is blocked or stopped and brain cells begin to die almost immediately. Doctors Hospital has a specially trained stroke team and emergency department personnel ready to rapidly respond to strokes around the clock.
DHL is also committed to making sure stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines. In recognition of this commitment, the hospital recently received the American Heart Association®/American Stroke Association® Get With The Guidelines® Target: Stroke Honor Roll Silver Plus Quality Achievement Award.
Learn more about the Stroke Center at Doctors Hospital.
Get with the Guidelines is a program dedicated to improving stroke care by promoting consistent adherence to the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines.
Doctors Hospital also received the association’s Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll 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.
“Doctors Hospital of Laredo 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,” says Stroke Program Coordinator Angelica M. Alvarez, RN. “The tools and resources provided help us track and measure our success in meeting evidence-based clinical guidelines developed to improve patient outcomes.”
*Centers for Disease Control and Prevention