Glendale Adventist Medical Center received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes Glendale Adventist Medical Center’s commitment and success in implementing excellent care for stroke patients, according to evidence-based guidelines.

To receive the award, the center achieved 85% or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and achieved 75% or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.

These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

In addition to the Get With The Guideline-Stroke Award, GAMC also was recognized as a recipient of the association’s Target: Stroke Honor Roll for improving stroke care. Over the past quarter, at least 50% of the hospital’s eligible ischemic stroke patients have received tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as ‘door-to-needle’ time). A thrombolytic, or clot-busting agent, tPA is the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the urgent treatment of ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reverse the effects of stroke and reduce permanent disability.

Glendale Adventist Medical Center is the only hospital in Los Angeles County to be certified as a stroke and chest pain center.

For more information, visit http://www.glendaleadventist.com/neuro.