East Cooper Medical Center Receives Get With The Guidelines-Gold Quality Achievement Award For Stroke Care

Mt. Pleasant, SC –  East Cooper Medical Center recently received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®–Stroke Gold Quality Achievement Award.

The award recognizes East Cooper Medical Center’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations. 

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Gold Quality Achievement Award addresses the important element of time,” said Toni Bunting, Stroke Coordinator at East Cooper. East Cooper Medical Center has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients admitted to the emergency department. This includes always being equipped to provide brain imaging scans, having neurologists available to conduct patient evaluations and using clot-busting medications when appropriate.

To receive the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Quality Achievement Award, East Cooper demonstrated 85% adherence in the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke key measures for 24 or more consecutive months. These include aggressive use of medications like tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol-reducing drugs, and smoking cessation.

“The American Stroke Association commends East Cooper Medical Center for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.  “The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients.”

Get With The Guidelines–­Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow their healthcare professionals’ guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke.

Through Get With The Guidelines–­Stroke, customized patient education materials are made available at the point of discharge, based on patients’ individual risk profiles. The take-away materials are written in an easy-to-understand format and are available in English and Spanish. In addition, the Get With The Guidelines Patient Management Tool provides access to up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.

“The time is right for East Cooper Medical Center to be focused on improving the quality of stroke care by implementing Get With The Guidelines–­Stroke. The number of acute ischemic stroke patients eligible for treatment is expected to grow over the next decade due to increasing stroke incidence and a large aging population,” said Jason Alexander, CEO of East Cooper Medical Center.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is one of the leading causes of death and serious, long-term 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.

About East Cooper Medical Center
East Cooper Medical Center, part of Tenet South Carolina, is a 130-bed acute care hospital located at 2000 Hospital Drive in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.  Previously located at 1200 Johnnie Dodds Blvd, East Cooper Medical Center has been providing healthcare to the East Cooper community since 1986.  Services include, but are not limited to: 24-hour emergency care, women’s and children’s services, diagnostic imaging and interventional services, orthopedics, sports medicine, pain care, adult and pediatric rehabilitation services, wound care services and surgical care, including nationally recognized spine surgery and breast reconstruction surgery.  East Cooper Medical Center is accredited by The Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency and has six gold seals of approval for health care quality.