Palmdale Regional Medical Center recently won a Stroke Gold Plus award from American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Michelle Irving,RN, discusses this amazing distinction and what it means for patients in the area that might be suffering a stroke.
Selected Podcast
Palmdale Receives the Stroke Gold Plus Award from American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Featured Speaker:
Michelle Irving
Michelle Irving is a RN and the Stroke and Sepsis Coordinator at Palmdale Regional Medical Center. Transcription:
Palmdale Receives the Stroke Gold Plus Award from American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Melanie Cole: Palmdale Regional Medical Center recently won a Stroke Gold Plus award from the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association. Here to tell us what that means for patients that might be suffering a stroke is my guest, Michelle Irving. She's a registered nurse and the stroke and sepsis coordinator at Palmdale Regional Medical Center. Welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about this award. What is the Stroke Gold Plus award?
Michelle Irving, RN: The Stroke Gold Plus award is an exciting award to achieve. It’s the highest award through the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association to get with the guidelines. That award is saying that you're providing quality care for your stroke patients and that you're achieving your measures which I can go over, but you're achieving them at 85% for 24 months. That means that for these last 24 months, we've been providing our patients with quality stroke care, providing them with the proper education and medication for stroke.
Melanie: Tell us about the criteria. What's involved in getting that kind of a high distinction?
Michelle: One of them is making sure when our stroke patients come in through our ER that we're checking them out as quickly as possible, that they're coming in when they've just had a stroke within 120 minutes that we would be providing them with TPA, which is a clot-busting medication to dissolve a clot if someone is having an ischemic stroke. We're also providing antithrombotic therapy that's giving them something like aspirin and that helps within their blood if they potentially have a clot or there are other medications that we can provide based off the doctor's decision. Also, education, we’re providing them with medication if they have a heart condition that is afib or a flutter, which can put you at risk of having a stroke. We’re also providing them education on smoking cessation if they are smoking and we’re also providing them with cholesterol medication if their LDLs are above 70. We’re following those measures over 85% of the time within the last 24 months.
Melanie: Is this something that a hospital receives just out of the blue or do you apply for an award such as this? How do they recognize you?
Michelle: We recognize through data collection. We have a really amazing quality department here at Palmdale Regional Medical Center and they actually have to input individual data for all of our stroke patients that come into the hospital, so we have a great team that they're actually looking through each patient’s chart. They're doing concurrent reviews and making sure the patient is in those guidelines and measures. When they're not, we’re follow-up with the physicians and saying this patient’s LDL is elevated, do you recommend us giving the medication for a statin. After that, we’re also looking at the charts after the patient is discharged and making sure that the doctor did everything that they needed to do, but also just our stroke program in general, if we have done that and if we haven't, we still have to submit that information to get with the guidelines. We have data throughout the year each month for each of our stroke patients that have been discharged and we look at if we met those measures, which is really exciting when we met those measures above 85% of the time. Sometimes it’s 95%, sometimes it’s 100%, sometimes it’s 86%, but we’re meeting those measures and it’s helping us to see how we can improve. When we’re at 86% one month but the previous month we may have been at 95%, we can look at say where do we need to improve in our program to provide the best care for our stroke patients.
Melanie: It’s like a big database of great advice from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. All hospitals put their data in there and they helped you to measure what you need to change and improve?
Michelle: Yes. They help you measure what you need to change and improve based off of what data we receive. They have set standards of measures, so they have those criteria, making sure a patient is educated when they are a stroke patient, making sure they're starting off with DT prophylaxis so that will be something like a thrombi guard so when they're lying in bed, they have leggings that provides massage to their legs to prevent blood clots, making sure they're on an antithrombotic medication or anticoagulant medication based off if they've had heart condition problems like afib and aflutter, making sure their cholesterol is being measured and if it is high or elevated to provide them with the proper medication. It gives us a set standard of what we need to do and this is based on evidence-based practice and many journal articles through the American Heart Association and Stroke Association saying this is the best practice of care for stroke patients. They provide those measures and those measures we follow throughout that patient's stay if we met those measures. That helps us to know that we did the best care that we can with that patient. If we're falling off, we missed a medication, it shows us how we need to improve, how we need to educate our physicians or how to educate our nurses if they're not providing the proper education for our stroke patients.
Melanie: My next questions was going to be what does that mean for the hospital, but it seems like it’s really an increased educational award for your nurses and doctors and an incentive for them to keep reeducating and keep up on the latest advances in stroke care.
Michelle: Correct. It really shows us how we've improved. We were Silver Plus last year and we received an award at the recent American Heart Association and Stroke Association international conference in Los Angeles. Now, having receive that Silver Plus from the previous year and knowing that this year based off of 24 months of data that we are improving, it just shows that our stroke program is getting better and that we have bought in and we're a team with our RNs and physicians. It makes us want to do better and continues to help us become team oriented and working together. Not only that, but it also helps not just the physicians and the RNs, but also our rehab therapy because in one of those measures, it talks about if a patient's been assessed for rehabilitation, so making sure our stroke patients are receiving the physical therapy, the speech therapy, and the occupational therapy, so we're a team and it shows that by us going from Silver Plus to Gold Plus, which is the highest award you can achieve.
Melanie: Now, what does this mean for patients as you wrap up for us? Give your best advice on even preventing a stroke, but on the educational aspect that you’ve discussed for all the health care providers. How does that translate to better outcomes and better care for the patients?
Michelle: This translates to better outcomes for our patients, one, when our patients come to our hospital, they're going to be provided the best quality care with any disease or condition, but with stroke care because of this award. We know what to do for our patients. We know when they come in through the ER or even if there's a co-stroke inpatient, we know from the beginning to the end what to do. We know what we need to track for our patients, the medications that need to be on labs, that need to be drawn and the rehabilitation that needs to be provided for them as well as education. We’re helping our patients hopefully decrease their risk of long-term disability which stroke has the highest rate of long-term disability, so that’s our goal, to prevent disability and death and making sure that if our patients come in with a stroke, we can provide them with the best care possible to prevent long-term disability and through that start early rehabilitation, start early medication and BT prophylaxis to prevent a future stroke and to educate themselves on how to prevent a future stroke by decreasing their cholesterol levels, educating them on the warning signs of stroke, going over FAST with them and making sure that if they have family involvement that they also know because we do know that those who have had a stroke are at a risk of having another stroke. We want to make sure they know the warning signs and how to know if they are having a stroke, how to come back to the ER very quickly to once again prevent that risk of disability or death. I believe this Gold Plus is helping us increase our standards, heighten our standards, to provide the best care we can and we're doing it in a team effort because we cannot have gotten Gold Plus if it wasn't for the assistance of the physicians, the RNs, and the rehabilitation team.
Melanie: Thank you so much for joining us today and congratulations on the Stroke Gold Plus award from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. It certainly is a big huge plus for the patients in the Palmdale area who might be suffering stroke. Thank you again. You're listening to Palmdale Regional Radio with Palmdale Regional Medical Center. For more information, please visit palmdaleregional.com. Physicians are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Palmdale Regional Medical Center. The hospital shall not be liable to for actions or treatments provided by physicians. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Palmdale Receives the Stroke Gold Plus Award from American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Melanie Cole: Palmdale Regional Medical Center recently won a Stroke Gold Plus award from the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association. Here to tell us what that means for patients that might be suffering a stroke is my guest, Michelle Irving. She's a registered nurse and the stroke and sepsis coordinator at Palmdale Regional Medical Center. Welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about this award. What is the Stroke Gold Plus award?
Michelle Irving, RN: The Stroke Gold Plus award is an exciting award to achieve. It’s the highest award through the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association to get with the guidelines. That award is saying that you're providing quality care for your stroke patients and that you're achieving your measures which I can go over, but you're achieving them at 85% for 24 months. That means that for these last 24 months, we've been providing our patients with quality stroke care, providing them with the proper education and medication for stroke.
Melanie: Tell us about the criteria. What's involved in getting that kind of a high distinction?
Michelle: One of them is making sure when our stroke patients come in through our ER that we're checking them out as quickly as possible, that they're coming in when they've just had a stroke within 120 minutes that we would be providing them with TPA, which is a clot-busting medication to dissolve a clot if someone is having an ischemic stroke. We're also providing antithrombotic therapy that's giving them something like aspirin and that helps within their blood if they potentially have a clot or there are other medications that we can provide based off the doctor's decision. Also, education, we’re providing them with medication if they have a heart condition that is afib or a flutter, which can put you at risk of having a stroke. We’re also providing them education on smoking cessation if they are smoking and we’re also providing them with cholesterol medication if their LDLs are above 70. We’re following those measures over 85% of the time within the last 24 months.
Melanie: Is this something that a hospital receives just out of the blue or do you apply for an award such as this? How do they recognize you?
Michelle: We recognize through data collection. We have a really amazing quality department here at Palmdale Regional Medical Center and they actually have to input individual data for all of our stroke patients that come into the hospital, so we have a great team that they're actually looking through each patient’s chart. They're doing concurrent reviews and making sure the patient is in those guidelines and measures. When they're not, we’re follow-up with the physicians and saying this patient’s LDL is elevated, do you recommend us giving the medication for a statin. After that, we’re also looking at the charts after the patient is discharged and making sure that the doctor did everything that they needed to do, but also just our stroke program in general, if we have done that and if we haven't, we still have to submit that information to get with the guidelines. We have data throughout the year each month for each of our stroke patients that have been discharged and we look at if we met those measures, which is really exciting when we met those measures above 85% of the time. Sometimes it’s 95%, sometimes it’s 100%, sometimes it’s 86%, but we’re meeting those measures and it’s helping us to see how we can improve. When we’re at 86% one month but the previous month we may have been at 95%, we can look at say where do we need to improve in our program to provide the best care for our stroke patients.
Melanie: It’s like a big database of great advice from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. All hospitals put their data in there and they helped you to measure what you need to change and improve?
Michelle: Yes. They help you measure what you need to change and improve based off of what data we receive. They have set standards of measures, so they have those criteria, making sure a patient is educated when they are a stroke patient, making sure they're starting off with DT prophylaxis so that will be something like a thrombi guard so when they're lying in bed, they have leggings that provides massage to their legs to prevent blood clots, making sure they're on an antithrombotic medication or anticoagulant medication based off if they've had heart condition problems like afib and aflutter, making sure their cholesterol is being measured and if it is high or elevated to provide them with the proper medication. It gives us a set standard of what we need to do and this is based on evidence-based practice and many journal articles through the American Heart Association and Stroke Association saying this is the best practice of care for stroke patients. They provide those measures and those measures we follow throughout that patient's stay if we met those measures. That helps us to know that we did the best care that we can with that patient. If we're falling off, we missed a medication, it shows us how we need to improve, how we need to educate our physicians or how to educate our nurses if they're not providing the proper education for our stroke patients.
Melanie: My next questions was going to be what does that mean for the hospital, but it seems like it’s really an increased educational award for your nurses and doctors and an incentive for them to keep reeducating and keep up on the latest advances in stroke care.
Michelle: Correct. It really shows us how we've improved. We were Silver Plus last year and we received an award at the recent American Heart Association and Stroke Association international conference in Los Angeles. Now, having receive that Silver Plus from the previous year and knowing that this year based off of 24 months of data that we are improving, it just shows that our stroke program is getting better and that we have bought in and we're a team with our RNs and physicians. It makes us want to do better and continues to help us become team oriented and working together. Not only that, but it also helps not just the physicians and the RNs, but also our rehab therapy because in one of those measures, it talks about if a patient's been assessed for rehabilitation, so making sure our stroke patients are receiving the physical therapy, the speech therapy, and the occupational therapy, so we're a team and it shows that by us going from Silver Plus to Gold Plus, which is the highest award you can achieve.
Melanie: Now, what does this mean for patients as you wrap up for us? Give your best advice on even preventing a stroke, but on the educational aspect that you’ve discussed for all the health care providers. How does that translate to better outcomes and better care for the patients?
Michelle: This translates to better outcomes for our patients, one, when our patients come to our hospital, they're going to be provided the best quality care with any disease or condition, but with stroke care because of this award. We know what to do for our patients. We know when they come in through the ER or even if there's a co-stroke inpatient, we know from the beginning to the end what to do. We know what we need to track for our patients, the medications that need to be on labs, that need to be drawn and the rehabilitation that needs to be provided for them as well as education. We’re helping our patients hopefully decrease their risk of long-term disability which stroke has the highest rate of long-term disability, so that’s our goal, to prevent disability and death and making sure that if our patients come in with a stroke, we can provide them with the best care possible to prevent long-term disability and through that start early rehabilitation, start early medication and BT prophylaxis to prevent a future stroke and to educate themselves on how to prevent a future stroke by decreasing their cholesterol levels, educating them on the warning signs of stroke, going over FAST with them and making sure that if they have family involvement that they also know because we do know that those who have had a stroke are at a risk of having another stroke. We want to make sure they know the warning signs and how to know if they are having a stroke, how to come back to the ER very quickly to once again prevent that risk of disability or death. I believe this Gold Plus is helping us increase our standards, heighten our standards, to provide the best care we can and we're doing it in a team effort because we cannot have gotten Gold Plus if it wasn't for the assistance of the physicians, the RNs, and the rehabilitation team.
Melanie: Thank you so much for joining us today and congratulations on the Stroke Gold Plus award from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. It certainly is a big huge plus for the patients in the Palmdale area who might be suffering stroke. Thank you again. You're listening to Palmdale Regional Radio with Palmdale Regional Medical Center. For more information, please visit palmdaleregional.com. Physicians are independent practitioners who are not employees or agents of Palmdale Regional Medical Center. The hospital shall not be liable to for actions or treatments provided by physicians. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.