The St. John Heyman Stroke Center at St. John Medical Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma, an Ascension Ministry, has been awarded the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s most prestigious accolades in quality stroke care. The awards were presented last month at the 2015 International Stroke Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
The center has earned five consecutive Gold Plus Awards, which applaud consistently high adherence to core treatment guidelines. The center has also been listed on the Target: Stroke Honor Roll for three consecutive years for excellence in door-to-treatment times, which fall well below the national average of stroke care providers. This was the first year for the “Elite Plus” level of the Honor Roll, and St. John was one of few facilities to receive the honor.
“These honors demonstrate our commitment to ensuring our patients receive care based on internationally respected clinical guidelines,” said Anna Wanahita, MD, medical director of the St. John Heyman Stroke Center. “Our multidisciplinary stroke team is dedicated to continuously improving the quality of stroke care for our patients. These awards belong to everyone who is taking care of our stroke patients at St. John, including EMS/paramedics, physicians, nurses and technicians in the emergency department, as well as radiology, intensive care, the stroke telemetry unit and rehabilitation. We earn these awards because everyone understands the importance of time in treating acute stroke victims, and everyone knows we have to work together. Our team always sees patient care as a priority, no matter what time of day or day of the week.”
The St. John Heyman Stroke Center is the first comprehensive stroke center in eastern Oklahoma and one of only 84 nationwide. The certification, presented to only the nation’s top healthcare providers, reflects their ability and commitment to treat even the most complex strokes.
“We are pleased to recognize St. John for its commitment and dedication to stroke care,” said Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH, national chairman of the AHA/ASA “Get With The Guidelines” steering committee, executive director of the interventional cardiovascular program at Brigham & 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 patients’ length of stay and 30-day readmission rate and reduce disparity gaps in care.”
Anna Wanahita, MD; Heather Lorenz, RN; Stacie Boyd, RN; Erin Robertson, RN; Elizabeth Radford, RN; and Krista Thacker represented St. John Medical Center at the Quality Achievement Awards recognition event. They also helped present the abstract “Oral Care Program Decreases Length of Stay and Length of Time Oral Foods and Fluids are Withheld in Stroke Patients” during the State-of-the-Science Stroke Nursing Symposium portion of the conference.
