Lutheran Medical Center wins national award

Hospital recognized for its stroke center

May 30, 2014 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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Lutheran Medical Center has won national recognition for its stroke treatment center.

The Sunset Park-based hospital won the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Award from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association for meeting stroke treatment measures, including reducing the time between hospital arrival and treatment.

The hospital administers the clot-buster tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat certain types of strokes.

People who suffer a stroke who receive the drug within three hours of the onset of symptoms may recover quicker and are less likely to suffer severe disability, according to Lutheran Medical Center officials. Dr. Salman Azhar is the director of the Stroke Center.

The hospital also won another award. For the sixth year in a row, Lutheran Medical Center was awarded the Get With the Guidelines – Stroke Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award from the heart and stroke associations. The award recognizes the hospital’s success in implementing a higher standard of care by ensuring that stroke patients received treatment according to nationally accepted guidelines. This award was earned by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.

The benchmarks include aggressive use of medications and risk-reduction therapies aimed at reducing death and disability.

Hospitals receiving the Gold-Plus Achievement Award have reached a goal of treating patients with 85 percent or higher compliance to core standard levels of care as outlined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for 12 consecutive months. Hospitals receiving the Target: Stroke Honor Roll award are recognized for delivering tPA in 60 minutes or less. Less than 400 hospitals nationwide reach meet the rigid guidelines.

Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the U.S., according to the American Stroke Association. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and someone dies of a stroke every four minutes.

To learn more about Lutheran Medical Center’s Stroke Center, visit http://bit.ly/1iIe7Vp.