Mayo Clinic Hospital Earns American Stroke Association Award for Stroke Care

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Mayo Clinic Hospital is among a small number of hospitals in the Southwest - and the only hospital in Arizona - to receive a Stroke Performance Achievement Award from the American Stroke Association. The award is part of its "Stroke - Get With the Guidelines" assessment and quality improvement program.

Mayo Clinic was recognized for this achievement at the recent International Stroke Conference in Orlando, FL. "Get With the Guidelines" is a program designed to achieve significant reductions in deaths, recurrent stroke or related events. Mayo Clinic Hospital earned this recognition by achieving a greater than 85 percent compliance of the American Stroke Association guidelines for treatment of hospitalized patients who had an acute stroke.

Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in the United States, according to the American Stroke Association. The ability to quickly determine the precise location of a stroke, the cause of the stroke and the amount of damage is essential for making treatment decisions. Mayo Clinic's stroke team includes three highly-published, stroke-fellowship trained physicians, one of whom is always available to treat patients who present at the Emergency Department with stroke symptoms.

Participation in this program is voluntary. Currently there are 675 hospitals nationwide that participate and only 31 of those hospitals have earned this distinction.

"Participating in programs such as 'Get With the Guidelines' gives us a lead on progressive quality initiatives and the newest evidence-based guidelines for the care of our patients," said Bart M. Demaerchalk, M.D., Mayo Clinic neurologist.

"Recognitions such as this are gratifying and are a wonderful reflection of our team approach to providing excellent patient care," says Victor F. Trastek, M.D., CEO of Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. Doctors from every medical specialty work together to care for patients, joined by common systems and a philosophy of "the needs of the patient come first." More than 3,700 physicians, scientists and researchers and 50,100 allied health staff work at Mayo Clinic, which has sites in Rochester, Minn; Jacksonville, Fla; and Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. and community based providers in more than 70 locations in Southern Minn., Western Wis. and Northeast Iowa. These locations treat more than half a million people each year. To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. For information about research and education, visit www.mayo.edu. MayoClinic.com is available as a resource for your health stories.