Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®–Stroke Gold Plus-Target: Stroke Honor Roll Quality Achievement Award at the association’s International Stroke Conference 2015. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success ensuring that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital is one of 559 hospitals to be recognized on the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, among the nearly 1,000 hospitals given quality achievement awards at the conference. 

To receive the Target: Stroke Honor Roll award, 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 three hours after the start of symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability.  Over three months or greater, at least 50 percent of the hospital’s ischemic stroke patients have received tPA within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as door-to-needle time).

These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.

“When someone experiences a stroke, minutes matter. Time lost is brain tissue lost. It is important for stroke patients to receive the most appropriate treatment level as soon as possible,” said Beryl Ramsey, chief executive officer, Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital & senior vice president, Houston Methodist. “This award demonstrates our commitment to provide quality stroke care in the Northwest Houston community.”

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number five 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 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.