Stroke Rural Recognition Bronze

The American Heart Association Award presents Get With The Guidelines® - Stroke Rural Recognition Bronze award recognizes efforts to address the unique needs of rural communities

People who live in rural communities live an average of three years fewer than urban counterparts, have a 40% higher likelihood of developing heart disease, and face a 30% increased risk for stroke mortality — a gap that has grown over the past two decades. Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center is committed to changing that.

For efforts to optimize stroke care and eliminate rural healthcare outcome disparities, Memorial Hospital has received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines^® - Stroke Rural Recognition Bronze award.

The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, recognizes the importance of healthcare services provided to people living in rural areas by rural hospitals that play a vital role in initiation of timely evidence-based care. For that reason, all rural hospitals participating in Get With The Guidelines^® - Stroke are eligible to receive award recognition based on a unique methodology focused on early acute stroke performance metrics.

The award recognizes hospitals for their efforts toward acute stroke care excellence demonstrated by composite score compliance to guideline-directed care for intravenous thrombolytic therapy, timely hospital inter-facility transfer, dysphagia screening, symptom timeline and deficit assessment documentation, emergency medical services communication, brain imaging and stroke expert consultation.

“Patients and healthcare professionals in Southwestern Indiana face unique healthcare challenges and opportunities,” said Karen E. Joynt Maddox, M.D., MPH, volunteer expert for the American Heart Association, co-author on “Call to Action: Rural Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association” and co-director of the Center for Health Economics and Policy at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center has furthered this important work to improve care for all Americans, regardless of where they live.”

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 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 14 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.