Maui Hospital Receives Honor Award for Stroke Care

MMMC team members pictured left to right: Donald Halsey, Stroke Program Coordinator; Dr. Susan Stewart, Chief of Clinical Affairs; Kathy Hall, Imaging Supervisor; Iris Zulueta, RPN; David May, ED Assistant Manager; Julius Montehermoso. Courtesy photo.

By Maui Now Staff

The Maui Memorial Medical Center is the recipient of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Target: Stroke Honor Roll-Elite Quality Achievement Award.

The award was presented at the association’s International Stroke Conference 2015 and recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success in ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines.

MMMC is one of 559 hospitals to be recognized on the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, among the nearly 1,000 hospitals given quality achievement awards at the conference.

To receive the Target: Stroke Honor Roll-Elite award, 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, hospital representatives say tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability. Over twelve months, at least 75% of the hospital’s ischemic stroke patients have received tPA within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital.

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and this award demonstrates our commitment to ensuring patients receive care based on nationally-respected clinical guidelines,” said Carol Clark of MMMC Communications in a press release. “MMMC is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines Stroke helps us achieve that goal,” she said.

MMMC has also met specific scientific guidelines as a Primary Stroke Center, featuring a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department, Clark said.

“We are pleased to recognize Maui Memorial Medical Center for their commitment to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and 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 length of stay and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparities in care.”