“This recognition further demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said Dr. Salman Azhar, director of the NYU Lutheran Comprehensive Stroke Center and vice chair of neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center.

The national recognition from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association “further reinforces our team’s hard work,” Azhar said.

To receive the Gold Plus Achievement Award, a hospital has to score 85 percent or higher in all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods. In addition, it must achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight measures determined by medical experts. 

To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus honor, hospitals have to meet measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster drug Tissue Plasminogen Activator, or tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat certain strokes.

If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of a stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability, according to NYU Luther officials.

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize NYU Lutheran for its commitment to stroke care,” said Dr. Paul Heidenreich, national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and a professor of medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines program.”

Under the Get With The Guidelines program, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association helps hospitals nationwide by assisting health care teams to ensure that the care provided to patients is aligned with the latest research-based guidelines.

The program impacted more than 3 million patients since 2003, according the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. 

A stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S., experts from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association said. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds.