Maui Memorial Medical Center Earns Award

MMMC team members (from left) include Dr. Deyaa Mounir, Heart Failure Physician Champion; Leslie Lexier, RN, Heart Failure Quality Specialist; Don Halsey, RN, Stroke Program Coordinator. (Not pictured: Dr. George Powell, Stroke Program Director). MMMC photo.

Maui Memorial Medical Center has been awarded the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s “Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award” and recognition on the Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll.

The award recognizes the hospital’s successes in providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines.

Hospitals must achieve 85% or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75% or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures to receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, 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 US Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke.

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.

Maui Memorial 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 quality measures are designed 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.

“With a stroke, every minute without treatment could mean more potential brain function loss,” said Don Halsey, MMMC Stroke Program Coordinator. “This award demonstrates our commitment to ensuring patients receive nationally recognized quality care, quickly and safely. MMMC is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines Stroke Award further reinforces our continued efforts.”

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Maui Memorial Medical Center for its commitment to stroke care,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., 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.”

Get With The Guidelines-Stroke puts the expertise of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association to work for hospitals nationwide, helping hospital care teams ensure the care provided to patients is aligned with the latest research-based guidelines.

Developed with the goal to save lives and improve recovery time, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke has impacted more than three million patients since 2003.

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 US.

On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

For more information about MMMC, visit www.mauimemorialmedical.org.

For more information about Get With The Guidelines, visit heart.org.