Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Receives National Award for Stroke Care 2018

June 8, 2018

Cheyenne, WY― The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association^® recently presented Cheyenne Regional Medical Center with the Get With The Guidelines^®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

Get With The Guidelines-Stroke is a national program that encourages participating hospitals to follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based stroke guidelines, with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. Get With The Guidelines programs, focused on heart and stroke care, were started in 2001.

Hospitals receiving the Gold-level award must achieve 85 percent or higher compliance to Get With The Guidelines-Stroke core standard levels of care for at least two consecutive calendar years. “Gold Plus” recognition is given to hospitals that additionally demonstrate 75 percent compliance to a self-selected group of quality measures.

Quality measures that Gold Plus-level hospitals must meet include the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments aligned with the most up-to-date guidelines. Before being discharged from the hospital, stroke patients must also receive education on managing their health, receive other transition interventions and be scheduled for a follow-up visit with their healthcare provider.

CRMC received the Get with the Guidelines^® -Stroke Silver Quality Achievement Award in 2017 and the Bronze-level award in 2015.

“This most recent recognition demonstrates Cheyenne Regional Medical Center’s commitment to delivering advanced stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely,” said Carol Rieser, CRMC’s Specialty Services administrator. “The fact that we have received ever-higher level quality awards over the past few years also validates our stroke care team’s intensive and ongoing focus on providing the latest scientific-based treatments for stroke patients to help them achieve the best possible outcomes.”

“We are pleased to recognize Cheyenne Regional Medical Center for their commitment to stroke care,” said Eric E. Smith, M.D., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and an associate professor of neurology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. “Research has shown that hospitals adhering to clinical measures through the Get with the Guidelines quality improvement initiative can often see fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”

Stroke is the fifth-leading cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States, according to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

“The Get With The Guidelines program is so valuable because it helps hospitals put proven knowledge and guidelines to work, on behalf of patients, on a daily basis,” Rieser said.  “And while it’s an honor for our hospital and clinical team to receive this award, ultimately this work is really about doing our utmost to save lives and improve the quality of life for the stroke patients we treat.”

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 tools and resources to increase adherence to 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 six million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.