Baystate Wing Hospital Receives Award for Stroke Care

PALMER — Baystate Wing Hospital received the Paul Coverdell National Stroke Program Award for achieving door imaging (CT scan) in less than 25 minutes from arrival for at least 75% of its stroke patients. This award shows Wing’s commitment to using nationally recognized, research-based guidelines backed by the latest scientific evidence.

This award recognizes achievement in decreasing the time to scan a patient for diagnostic purposes, decreasing the time to treatment, and improving recovery rates for stroke patients who arrived in the Emergency Department in 2020. Hospital leadership expressed pride that the extra precautions for COVID-19 did not affect the quality of care received by patients who suffered from a stroke.

For the award, patients must receive a head CT scan within 25 minutes of arrival for acute ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke patients who arrive within two hours of the start of symptoms. Hospitals were encouraged to include EMS agencies in quality-improvement activities aimed at improving this measure.

“We are very proud of this award and attribute it to the collaborative efforts of our stroke team,” said Dr. Robert Spence, chief of Emergency Medicine at Baystate Wing Hospital. “Our team at Baystate Wing Hospital strive to provide exceptional care to all of our patients. We work closely with area EMS providers to initiate a stroke alert when they recognize a patient with stroke symptoms in the field. Once they initiate that stroke alert, our team assembles to begin the stroke assessment and treatment the moment a patient arrives in our ER. We are proud that our commitment to providing quality stroke care was recognized by this prestigious award from the DPH’s Coverdell Stroke program.”

Stroke is the fifth-leading cause of death in the Commonwealth and a leading cause of adult disability.