HMC Ranks First in Massachusetts in Stroke Care

HOLYOKE — The Stroke Collaborative Reaching for Excellence (SCORE), a voluntary, statewide, quality-improvement collaborative administered by the Mass. Department of Public Health (DPH) in support of primary-stroke-service hospitals, has once again ranked Holyoke Medical Center first out of 58 hospitals in the state, including large teaching facilities, for stroke care. Defect-free care is achieved when a patient receives the appropriate care based on clinical guidelines.

“Holyoke Medical Center is proud that our hard work and passion for providing great care was recognized by this prestigious award from the DPH’s SCORE program,” said HMC Stroke Program Clinical Manager Angela Smith. “We strive to provide exceptional care to all of our patients. This award represents that every stroke patient that comes through our doors receives the highest quality of care.”

The rating evaluates adherence to 10 stroke consensus measures and requires that each stroke patient receives all 10 measures.

This was one of several awards the medical center received at the annual award ceremony of the American Heart/Stroke Assoc. and SCORE. HMC also received awards for being the highest performer on the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale and the American Stroke Assoc. Get with the Guidelines Gold, Gold Plus, and Target Stroke Honor Roll awards for consistently exceeding quality-care benchmarks for stroke and administering the clot-busting drug tPA within 60 minutes of hospital arrival.