HCN News & Notes

Holyoke Medical Center Honored for Excellence in Stroke Care

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Medical Center (HMC) has received five national and state awards for excellence and quality of stroke care in Massachusetts, including the American Heart Assoc./American Stroke Assoc. Get with the Guidelines Stroke Gold Quality Achievement Award with Target: Stroke Elite Plus Honor Roll. The other four awards were presented by the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Angela Smith, HMC’s stroke clinical manager, noted that, “with a stroke, time loss equals brain loss. Our team is dedicated to improving patient outcomes with speed and efficiency. We want every patient to have the very best and these awards recognize that we are meeting those goals.”  

The Get with the Guidelines award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence. To qualify for the Target: Stroke Elite Plus Honor Roll, 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 U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. HMC earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.

The Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Program awards included the Coverdell National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) Rate of 100 Percent Award, recognizing HMC for performing NIHSS assessments on all stroke patients from January 2017 to December 2017; the Defect-free Care Award, which recognizes HMC for providing defect-free care for 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} or more of its stroke patients, utilizing all of the interventions for which each patient was eligible between January 2017 and December 2017; the Modified Rankin Scale Greater Than or Equal to 85{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} Award, which recognizes HMC as a hospital which completed the Modified Rankin Scale on at least 85{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of stroke patients from January 2017 to December 2017; and the Dysphagia Screening Greater Than or Equal to 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} Award, recognizing HMC for completing dysphagia screening on at least 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of stroke patients from January 2017 to December 2017.

“Time is of the essence when treating stroke victims,” said Spiros Hatiras, president and CEO of Holyoke Medical Center and Valley Health Systems. “The combined magnitude of Holyoke Medical Center receiving all of these awards is a testament of the hard work our team provides in ensuring the highest quality care is given to every patient, every day, close to home. I commend them once again for their consistency and dedication in making HMC a strong, independent community hospital.”