May 31, 2016
John T. Mather Memorial Hospital received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite. The award recognizes the Hospital’s commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
Hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures to receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.
Mather has received the Gold Plus award each year since 2011 and has made the Target: StrokeSM honor roll since 2012. “This continued recognition demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said Kenneth Roberts. “We strive for excellence in the acute treatment of 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 three 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. Mather earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.
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.
Mather also has met specific scientific guidelines as a Primary Stroke Center for patients admitted to the Emergency Department.
John T. Mather Memorial Hospital is an accredited 248-bed, non-profit community teaching hospital dedicated to providing a wide spectrum of high quality healthcare services to Suffolk County residents, showing compassion and respect and treating each patient in the manner we would wish for our loved ones. Mather has earned the prestigious Magnet® recognition from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), which recognizes healthcare organizations for quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovations in professional nursing practice. Mather also has received nine consecutive top “A” ratings from The Leapfrog Group for patient safety, the only New York State hospital to achieve that distinction and one of only 98 hospitals nationwide to receive an A score in each of the twice yearly rating periods. Mather also is one of only seven New York State Hospitals to earn the Healthgrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award.