Baystate Mary Lane, Baystate Wing Hospitals Honored for Stroke Care

WARE, PALMER — Baystate Mary Lane Hospital and Baystate Wing Hospital have both received the Get with the Guidelines – Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality-improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Assoc./American Stroke Assoc. for the treatment of stroke patients, and the Defect-free Care Award from the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Program at the state Department of Public Health.

These awards recognize the hospital’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.

“We are extremely proud of these awards and attribute them to the collaborative efforts of our stroke teams, who offer the same superior level of emergency care at both our facilities,” said Dr. David Maguire, chief medical officer of Baystate Health’s Eastern Region, which includes Baystate Mary Lane and Baystate Wing hospitals. “These teams are made up of our physicians and nurses in the Emergency Department; our colleagues in Laboratory, Radiology, and Physical Therapy; as well as our dietitian and nurses on the patient-care units and in Quality and Education. Each member of the team contributes significantly to ensure that we provide the same exceptional care to all our patients throughout the Eastern Region.”

By following Get with the Guidelines – Stroke treatment guidelines, patients are started on aggressive risk-reduction therapies, including the use of medications such as tPA, antithrombotics, and anticoagulation therapy, along with cholesterol-reducing drugs and smoking-cessation counseling. These are all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients. Hospitals must adhere to these measures at a set level for a designated period of time to be eligible for the achievement awards.

“Time is essential to excellent stroke outcomes, and this award demonstrates not only our commitment, but our success in providing the highest-quality stroke care locally,” said Kimberly Davis, Emergency Services nurse manager for the Eastern Region.”

Added Gaye Harris, Quality Measures manager and Stroke Program coordinator, “the staff at both our ERs work closely with our EMS providers to initiate a stroke alert when they recognize a patient with stokes symptoms in the field. Once they initiate that stroke alert, our team assembles to begin the stroke assessment and treatment the moment he or she arrives at the hospital. This coordination can mean the difference between life and death for a stroke patient.”

According to the American Heart Assoc./American Stroke Assoc., stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, long-term disability in the U.S. 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.