MUSC strikes gold with stroke awards: 1/25

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MUSC strikes gold with stroke awards

by Cindy Abole
Public Relations

The MUSC medical center received the American Heart Association/American Stoke Association's Get with the Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. This achievement recognizes MUSC's commitment in providing exceptional care for stroke patients based on evidence-based strategies and guidelines.

Awards Dr. Shelly Ozark, right, awards CT technicians Lori Myers, left, and Corrine Doherty, with their lapel achievement pins.

MUSC is among several dozen hospitals to achieve an 85 percent or higher adherence to Get with the Guidelines stroke quality achievement indicators for two or more 12-month intervals and to achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 stroke quality measures.

The award reflects the collaborative work of MUSC's Comprehensive Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center and multidisciplinary teams of physicians, nurses and technologists. This effort was led by Christine Holmstedt, D.O., medical director of the clinical stroke services, and Shelly Ozark, M.D., stroke neurologist, as well as a team of neuroradiology, neurosurgery, neurology and emergency medicine physicians who specialize in stroke care and related disorders.

Ozark worked with staff to reduce the door-to-needle time from the nationally recommended 60 minutes or less to receive thrombolytic therapy to improve outcomes for stoke patients. In spring 2012, MUSC teams averaged 78 minutes. Now, stroke team members are successfully treating patients at an average of 33 minutes. To celebrate this, Ozark distributed brain lapel pins to emergency department and CT technicians for their hard work and helping to "save a brain."

"Time lost is brain lost with stroke. The sooner we can treat a patient, the better they are likely to have good outcomes. During a stroke, brain cells die at a rate of 2 million cells per minute. Every minute wasted is a minute too long," Ozark said.

In addition to the national award, MUSC was a recipient of the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, for improving stroke care. For information, visit http://www.muschealth.com/stroke/.

Friday, Jan. 25, 2013

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