American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Award recognizes Piedmont Medical Center for commitment to quality stroke and heart care

Rock Hill, N.C. (October 27, 2016) — Piedmont Medical Center has earned the Get With The Guidelines^®–Heart Failure Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Foundation’s secondary prevention guidelines for patients with heart failure.

Piedmont Medical Center was also awarded the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®–Target: Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

“Piedmont Medical Center is proud to receive these achievement awards for continuing to provide our community with the highest quality of care,” said Bradley Talbert, CEO for Piedmont Medical Center. “This recognition further demonstrates our commitment to delivering advanced heart and stroke treatments to patients quickly and safely.”

Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure is a quality improvement program that helps hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, research-based standards with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. Launched in 2005, numerous published studies have demonstrated the program’s success in achieving patient outcome improvements, including reductions in 30-day readmissions.  

To receive the Target: Stroke Honor Roll-Elite award, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. If given intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability. Over 12 months, at least 75 percent of the hospital’s ischemic stroke patients have received tPA within 60 minutes of arriving at the hospital (known as door-to-needle time).

“The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Piedmont Medical Center for its commitment to heart and stroke care,” said Paul Heidenreich, M.D., M.S., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “Research has shown there are benefits to patients who are treated at hospitals that have adopted the Get With The Guidelines programs.”

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.       

According to the American Heart Association, about 5.7 million adults in the United States suffer from heart failure, with the number expected to rise to eight million by 2030. Statistics show that each year about 870,000 new cases are diagnosed and about 50 percent of those diagnosed will die within five years. However, many heart failure patients can lead a full, enjoyable life when their condition is managed with proper medications or devices and with healthy lifestyle changes. 

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About Piedmont Medical Center
Piedmont Medical Center is a full service 288-bed hospital serving York, Lancaster and Chester counties. Piedmont has more than 350 physicians on staff, representing a broad range of over 40 medical specialties and subspecialties. The hospital’s main campus includes the Heart and Vascular Center which offers comprehensive diagnostic and treatment services, including an accredited Chest Pain center with PCI designation. This designation means Piedmont can provide emergency coronary interventions such as balloon angioplasty and stent placement. Piedmont has offered a heart surgery program to the community since 1997. Piedmont is also an Advanced Primary Stroke Center honored with a Get with the Guidelines Gold plus Honor Roll Elite Award.

Piedmont provides emergency services in our newly expanded Emergency Department, an accredited cancer program, endoscopy, a bariatric medicine program, and women’s services in The Women’s Center, orthopaedics, neurosurgery and psychiatric services. The medical center has several outpatient facilities, including diagnostic services, Sleep Center and Wound Care Center. Piedmont is affiliated with Piedmont Physician Network, a network of primary and subspecialty physician practices (www.pmcphysiciannetwork.com).

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 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 5 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org/quality or heart.org/QualityMap