Hospital receives national award for quality of after-stroke care - Greenfield, MA

These are NOT result awards so they don't tell you anything about how good the program is. Call that hospital president(Steven F. Bradley) and demand to know what the RESULTS are; 30 day deaths, 100% recovery.
There is absolutely nothing in here that tells me that the RESULTS are better in this hospital than other hospitals. I don't give a crap about how well you do processes.
Big f*cking whoopee.
Guidelines here: You can see how this is nothing to be impressed about. This is all indirect action, not results.
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthcareResearch/GetWithTheGuidelinesHFStrokeResus/GetWithTheGuidelinesStrokeHomePage/Get-With-The-Guidelines-Stroke-Overview_UCM_308021_Article.jsp
The puffery piece here:
http://www.recorder.com/home/17705893-95/hospital-receives-national-award-for-quality-of-after-stroke-care
For the third year in a row, Baystate Franklin Medical Center has received an award that recognizes the hospital’s success in ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate and timely treatment, according to national, research-based guidelines.

The Greenfield hospital won the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s “Get With The Guidelines” Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award again this year for following at least 85 percent of all the program’s protocol guidelines for at least two consecutive years.

In addition, Baystate Franklin achieved a “Target: Stroke Honor Roll” by meeting quality measures developed to reduce the time between a patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with tPA (tissue Plasminogen Activator) — a clot-busting drug, and the only FDA-approved drug to treat ischemic stroke.

When given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, iPA has significantly reduced the effects of stroke and lessened the chance of permanent disability. Baystate Franklin earned this second award by meeting quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients.

“The staff at Baystate Franklin are committed to continuously improving the acute stroke care process,” said Dr. Rajiv Padmanabhan of Greenfield Neurology. “We own special thanks to Dr. Rakesh ‘Kishi’ Talati, medical director of the Emergency Department, and to Diane Stephan, clinical nurse coordinator, for guiding such an integrated staff effort to ensure high quality care for all of our patients with stroke.”

For health care providers, the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program offers quality improvement measures, discharge protocols and other measurement tools that help save lives and lower readmission rates from stroke patients.

For patients, this program uses the “teachable moment” soon after a stroke to help a patient learn how to manage risk factors and to recognize warning signs of a stroke.