Waterbury Hospital Receives Prestigious Critical Care Awards
Waterbury Hospital has received two awards recognizing the hospital’s high quality of care: The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Achievement Award, and the Mission: Lifeline – STEMI Receiving Center – Silver Plus Award.
The Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to and success in implementing a higher standard for stroke patients. To receive the Gold Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive years.
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, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes, and nearly 800,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
The Lifeline Silver Plus award recognizes the implementation of specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association for the treatment of patients who suffer severe heart attacks. The program’s goal is to reduce system barriers to prompt treatment for heart attacks, beginning with the 9-1-1 call, to EMS transport and continuing through hospital treatment and discharge. Every year, more than 250,000 people experience an ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), the deadliest type of heart attack, caused by a blockage of blood flow to the heart that requires timely treatment. To prevent death, it’s critical to restore blood flow as quickly as possible, either by mechanically opening the blocked vessel or by providing clot-busting medication.
Waterbury Hospital earned the award by meeting specific criteria and standards of performance for quick and appropriate treatment through emergency procedures to re-establish blood flow to blocked arteries in heart attack patients coming into the hospital directly or by transfer from another facility.
“Both these awards are a testament to the quality of care we provide here at Waterbury Hospital. We are very proud of this work,” said Waterbury Hospital and Waterbury HEALTH CEO Peter Adamo.