Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital has been recognized for its commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to national standards and recommendations. The hospital received the award from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite.

“A stroke patient loses 1.9 million neurons every minute stroke treatment is delayed. That’s why Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital is committed to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said James Ling, M.D., medical director of the Houston Methodist Sugar Land Stroke Program. “This award recognizes our team’s hard work and dedication to the acute treatment of stroke patients.”

Houston Methodist Sugar Land has developed a comprehensive system for rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients seen in 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. “We will continue with our focus on providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with evidence-based protocols,” said Deanna Powell, stroke coordinator at Houston Methodist Sugar Land.

To receive the Gold Plus award, Houston Methodist Sugar Land achieved an 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality measures. These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.

To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first four and a half hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability.

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognizes Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital for its commitment to stroke care,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and 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.”

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the fifth leading 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 nearly 800,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

For more information about Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, visit houstonmethodist.org or call 281.274.7500 for a doctor in your area. Visit our Facebook page at fb.com/methodistsugarland for the latest news, events and information.

About Get With The Guidelines®
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with tools and resources to increase adherence to the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.