St. Luke's Hospital's stroke care program awarded Joint Commission certification

Friday, January 14, 2005

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan. 14, 2005 — St. Luke's Hospital has earned the Gold Seal of Approval(TM) for stroke care. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) has awarded Primary Stroke Center Certification to St. Luke's Hospital after an on-site review conducted last month.

The stroke program at St. Luke's started in 2003 with the mission to provide the best care to every patient through clinical practice, research and education. The program includes a multidisciplinary team of physicians from emergency medicine, neurology, neurosurgery and interventional radiology as well as nursing and rehabilitation services, pharmacy, radiology and social work. The program participates in numerous clinical trials in stroke prevention, treatment and genetics and is associated with Mayo Clinic's neurology residency program.

Joint Commission certification means the program complies with the national standards in the implementation of established clinical practice guidelines, performance measurements and continuous improvement programs for the care of stroke patients.

"This certification is national recognition of our excellence in caring for stroke patients," says Dr. Scott Silvers, Mayo Clinic emergency medicine physician and co-director of the Stroke Center at St. Luke's Hospital. "Patients can be assured of certain standards regarding diagnosis, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, with the ultimate goal of reducing the time between stroke onset and treatment," says Dr. James Meschia, Mayo Clinic neurologist and medical director of the Stroke Center at St. Luke's Hospital.

One way that St. Luke's program demonstrated continuous improvement was to institute a process aimed at eliminating a common stroke-related complication. One of the major deficits stroke sufferers are likely to experience is a swallowing disorder (dysphagia). Dysphagia is often the cause of their aspiration pneumonia; but often, patients aren't evaluated for dysphagia until they've developed pneumonia. St. Luke's stroke team implemented a dysphagia assessment-screening tool created by Lisa Pitre, speech language pathologist and stroke team member. All stroke patients are assessed with the 10-minute screening tool within 24 hours of admission to the hospital. A speech and language pathologist follows up with a formal, swallowing evaluation.

The Joint Commission is an independent not-for-profit organization and the nation's oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. It evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 health-care organizations and programs in the United States, including more than 7,800 hospitals and home-care organizations.

Each year about 700,000 people experience a stroke. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause of serious, long-term disability.

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Mayo Clinic is a multispecialty medical clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. The staff includes 312 physicians working in more than 40 specialties to provide diagnosis, treatment and surgery. Patients who need hospitalization are admitted to nearby St. Luke's Hospital, a 289-bed Mayo facility. Mayo Clinics also are located in Rochester, Minn., and Scottsdale, Ariz. Visit www.MayoClinic.org/news for all the news from Mayo Clinic.

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