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American Heart Association Award recognizes Florida Medical Center’s commitment to quality stroke care
 
July 17, 2019 – Florida Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
 
Florida Medical Center earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period. These measures include evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments aligned with the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Before discharge, patients should also receive education on managing their health, get a follow-up visit scheduled, as well as other care transition interventions.
 
“Florida Medical Center 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,” said Jeffrey M. Welch, chief executive officer of Florida Medical Center  “The tools and resources provided help us track and measure our success in meeting evidenced-based clinical guidelines developed to improve patient outcomes.” 
 
Florida Medical Center additionally received the association’s Target: StrokeSM Elite Plus 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.
 
“We are pleased to recognize Florida Medical Center for their commitment to stroke care,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., national chairperson of the Quality Oversight Committee and Executive Vice Chair of Neurology, Director of Acute Stroke Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get With The Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”
 
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the No. 5 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 and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
  
 
About Florida Medical Center – a campus of North Shore
Florida Medical Center – a campus of North Shore is a 459-bed acute care hospital, owned and operated by Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Serving its communities since 1973, Florida Medical Center is a long-standing leader in cardiovascular care and home to The Heart Institute of Florida, a center for cardiac services and accredited Chest Pain Center with PCI.  Florida Medical Center was the first hospital in Broward County to perform open heart surgery. Florida Medical Center offers a broad range of medical and surgical services including: neurology and neurosurgery, a comprehensive orthopedics program, urology, psychiatry, gynecology, diagnostic imaging, pain center, wound care, diabetes education and 24-hour emergency services. The hospital has been granted numerous awards and was the first in South Florida to receive recognition as a Center of Excellence for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery and Robotic Surgery, as recognized by the Surgical Review Corporation. Florida Medical Center has been a recipient of the American Heart Association’s Get With the Guidelines in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and is fully accredited by the Joint Commission.  For more information, resources and to follow us on social media, please visit www.FloridaMedCtr.com.
 
About Get With The Guidelines®
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with tools and resources to increase adherence to the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.