Multiple WMCHealth Hospitals Recognized with National Quality Achievement Award for Stroke Programs

VALHALLA, NY - (August 26, 2019) ― Four hospitals within the Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth) recently received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award recognition. The awards recognize the hospitals' commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

Westchester Medical Center, the flagship of WMCHealth, and network affiliates MidHudson Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie, Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern and HealthAlliance Hospital: Broadway Campus in Kingston, each earned the Stroke Gold Plus award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a period of 24 months. These measures include evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments aligned with the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidelines, with a goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients.

Additional accolades were awarded to Westchester Medical Center and HealthAlliance Hospital: Broadway Campus, which earned Target Stroke Honor Roll, and to Good Samaritan Hospital, which earned Target Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus, for meeting separate quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient's arrival at the hospital and treatment.

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.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.