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American Heart Association Award recognizes Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center’s commitment to quality stroke care
 
June 19, 2019 ― Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center has received the American Heart Association’s 2019 Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus for the fifth straight year. 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.
 
Palm Beach Gardens 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.
 
“Palm Beach Gardens 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 chief executive officer, Teresa Urquhart. “The tools and resources provided help us track and measure our success in meeting evidenced-based clinical guidelines developed to improve patient outcomes.” 
 
“We are pleased to recognize Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center for their commitment to stroke care,” said Eric E. Smith, M.D., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and an associate professor of neurology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. “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 Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center is a 199-bed acute care hospital serving the medical and healthcare needs of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast for more than 45 years. The hospital was the first in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast to perform open-heart surgery and has since remained one of the area’s leading heart hospitals, having performed over 16,000 open-heart surgeries and more than 100,000 cardiac catheterizations to date. 
 
The Heart & Vascular Institute at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center offers comprehensive cardiac care and advanced minimally invasive procedures including Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) and MitraClip. The hospital is the first in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin County to adopt the new minimally invasive convergent approach to treat patients with atrial fibrillation. Most recently, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center became the first hospital from Miami to Jacksonville to commercially utilize a fully dissolving heart stent in the treatment of coronary artery disease. Due to the outstanding work of the Heart & Vascular Institute, Palm Beach Gardens was the only hospital in Florida to receive all three Healthgrades® America’s Best Cardiac Specialty Awards in 2017 – America’s 50 Best Hospitals for Cardiac Surgery™, America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Coronary Intervention™, and America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Cardiac Care™.
 
Additional services include orthopedics and joint replacement, a Certified Primary Stroke Center, diagnostic imaging, general and robotic surgery, an Epilepsy Program and 24-hour emergency care. Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center’s Emergency Department offers all private rooms and is equipped with technology to help increase patient comfort, reduce wait times and provide up-to-the-minute patient status, as well as immediate access to film-based radiological images, interpretations and related data. The hospital’s Epilepsy Program is the first of its kind in Palm Beach County to have a dedicated Epilepsy Monitoring Unit for patients in need of further assessment. 
 
Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center has been recognized by The Joint Commission as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures for four years in a row and by Healthgrades® as a Five-Star Recipient for the Treatment of Heart Failure for 10 consecutive years (2007-2016). The hospital was also the recipient of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines – Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for three years in a row (2013-2015). Additionally, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center earned Chest Pain Center Accreditation from the Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care. For more information or for a complimentary physician referral, please call 561-625-5070 or visit www.pbgmc.com.