St. Mary’s Health Care System is being recognized for its stroke care. St. Mary’s has received its 11th consecutive Get With the Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. Mark Ralston is the Public Relations Manager with the facility.
“Specifically, for the stroke quality achievement measures that look at how hospitals manage stroke patients from the beginning of their experience at the hospitals, when they come in the doors of the emergency department all the way to their discharge.”
Without treatment, up to 2 million brain cells can die each minute during a stroke.
“Stroke is a very serious condition that affects hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. It is one of the leading causes of adult disability and is also the leading cause of death. What happens is a blood vessel in the brain becomes blocked either by a hemorrhage, a torn vessel, or more often by a blood clot.”
That treatment should be administered as soon as possible.
“The standard protocol for delivering alteplase is a window of about three hours, so from the time symptoms appear - which is usually quite sudden, it’s quite traumatic if the person is awake - to the time that we administer alteplase, ideally, should be no more than three hours.”
This year, for the first time, St. Mary’s was named to the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite.
