Elmhurst Hospital Center Receives Top Honors for Quality in Stroke Care

May 26, 2015

Elmhurst, New York

Chris Constantino, Senior Vice President of the Queens Health Network and Executive Director of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) Elmhurst Hospital Center, announced today that the hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s “Get With the Guidelines—Stroke Gold Plus Award” for the fifth consecutive year. The hospital also received the AHA/ASA’s “Get With The Guidelines®–Target: Stroke Honor Roll – Elite Plus Quality Achievement Award,” highlighting success in ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

“HHC Elmhurst Hospital Center has an ongoing mission to provide high-quality, patient-centered stroke care to our community, making this a very proud moment for our healthcare providers to be recognized by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association in such a significant way,” said Mr. Constantino. “I’m confident that our team-based approach to handling stroke cases will help us continue to be a hospital leader in providing excellent treatment for our patients.”
Elmhurst Hospital earned the “Stroke Gold Plus Award” for achieving 85% or higher compliance for two consecutive years with all seven of the Association’s stroke achievement measures, including aggressive guidelines for the use of certain medications, and encouraging patients to enroll in Smoking Cessation and other secondary stroke prevention programs to improve patient outcomes.
To achieve the “Target: Stroke Honor Roll – Elite Plus Award,” hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the blood clot-busting medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, the medication, tPA, has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability.
The quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. HHC Elmhurst Hospital Center has also met specific scientific guidelines as a Primary Stroke Center, featuring a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to its emergency department.
“Elmhurst Hospital has tremendous collaboration in our emergency department that allows evaluation of a patient arriving with an acute stroke to run like clockwork,” said Dr. Joseph Farraye, Director of the Department of Neurology. “It’s absolutely amazing and rewarding to see how it affects outcomes for our patients, and we’re very proud to have earned American Heart/American Stroke Association awards for exceeding benchmark quality measures in stroke care since 2010.”
“We are pleased to recognize Elmhurst Hospital Center for their commitment to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce length of stay and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparities in care.”
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number five cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. 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.

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Contact: Atiya Butler, Elmhurst Hospital, 718-334-1259, butlerat@nychhc.org
Jennifer Bender, HHC,212-788-3339, benderj1@nychhc.org

About NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst

NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, part of the NYC Health + Hospitals health care system, is the major tertiary care provider in the borough of Queens. The hospital is comprised of 545 beds and is a Level 1 Trauma Center, an Emergency Heart Care Station and a 911-Receiving Hospital. It is a premiere health care organization for key areas such as Surgery, Cardiology, Women’s Health, Pediatrics, Rehabilitation Medicine, and Renal and Mental Health Services. Last year, the hospital received close to 700,000 ambulatory care visits and over 130,000 Emergency Room visits.

About NYC Health + Hospitals

The NYC Health + Hospitals health care system is a $6.7 billion integrated healthcare delivery system, the largest municipal healthcare organization in the country, and one of the New York area’s largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance, MetroPlusHealth Health Plan, the plan of choice for nearly half a million New Yorkers. The NYC Health + Hospitals health care system serves 1.4 million New Yorkers every year and more than 475,000 are uninsured. The system provides medical, mental health and substance abuse services through its 11 acute care hospitals, five skilled nursing facilities, six large diagnostic and treatment centers and more than 70 community based clinics. NYC Health + Hospitals/Home Care also provides in-home services for New Yorkers. The NYC Health + Hospitals system was the 2008 recipient of the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission’s John M. Eisenberg Award for Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org or find us on https://www.facebook.com/NYCHealthSystem or twitter.com/NYCHealthSystem

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