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Premier Health Hospitals Recognized for Excellence in Stroke Treatment

Dayton, OH (July 21, 2016) – All four Premier Health hospitals have received achievement awards from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. These Get With The Guidelines® awards recognize the hospitals’ commitment to provide the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

Miami Valley Hospital and Good Samaritan Hospital (closed in 2018) in Dayton, Atrium Medical Center in Middletown, and Upper Valley Medical Center in Troy all received Gold Plus Quality Achievement Awards for their stroke care through the Get With The Guidelines® program.

To earn the award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines® stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods. They also must reach 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines stroke quality measures.

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

Gold winners have provided stroke care at a high level for a longer period of time than silver award winners.

Miami Valley Hospital also received an Honor Roll Elite Plus distinction for steps it has taken to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with a clot-busting drug called tPA, or tissue plasminogen activator, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat acute ischemic stroke.

To receive that honor, the hospital had to treat clots within one hour in ischemic stroke patients and ensure that at least half of such patients received treatment within 45 minutes of arriving at the hospital.

Good Samaritan, Atrium and Upper Valley also received an honor roll distinction for their use of tPA. Hospitals receiving that award must treat at least half of appropriate patients with the clot-busting drug within one hour. 

Stroke is a leading cause of disability in the United States and the fifth leading cause of death. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability. Premier Health hospitals earned the awards by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.

“A stroke patient loses 1.9 million neurons each minute stroke treatment is delayed. This recognition further demonstrates our commitment to deliver advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” says Bryan Ludwig, MD, chair of the Premier Health Neuroscience Institute. “Premier Health continues to strive for excellence in the acute treatment of stroke patients. These awards further reinforce our team’s hard work.”

Miami Valley Hospital is the first Joint Commission-certified comprehensive stroke center in the greater Dayton region. Comprehensive stroke centers are recognized as industry leaders and are responsible for setting the national agenda in highly specialized stroke care.

Good Samaritan Hospital and Atrium Medical Center are Joint Commission-certified Advanced Primary Stroke Centers, and Upper Valley Medical Center has earned a designation as a “certified acute stroke-ready hospital” from the Joint Commission.

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Premier Health for its commitment to stroke care,” says Paul Heidenreich, MD, MS, national chairman of the 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.”

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