Mercy Iowa City has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® Target: Stroke Honor Roll Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.
Mercy Iowa City earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients including evaluation of the proper use of medications and other stroke treatments with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability. Before discharge patients also receive education on managing their health, have follow-up visits scheduled and other care transition interventions.
“Mercy Iowa City is a Primary Stroke Center in Johnson County and an important resource for patients. It is dedicated to improving the quality of care for our stroke patients by following the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines-Stroke initiative,” said Sean Williams, President and CEO. “We use their tools and resources to track and measure our success, improving patient outcomes.”
“We are pleased to recognize Mercy Iowa City for their commitment to stroke care,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., national chairperson of the Quality Oversight Committee and Executive Vice Chair of Neurology, Director of Acute Stroke Services, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “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.”
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 and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
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About Mercy Iowa City: Mercy Iowa City is an acute care hospital and regional referral center that draws patients from throughout southeast Iowa. For the past three years Mercy Iowa City has been awarded the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) 5 Star Rating as a Top 2% of all hospitals, the only hospital in Iowa to do so; is Johnson County’s only accredited Chest Pain Center with an American Hospital Association Gold Plus Achievement Award for Stroke Care; received the Top 100 Community Hospitals Award in 2018 from Becker’s Review; the Press Ganey Guardian of
Excellence Award for Mercy’s Emergency Care Unit by achieving 95 percent for patient experience for eleven consecutive years; an “A” grade for patient safety from Leapfrog; and the Center of Distinction Award from Healogics for Mercy’s Wound and Vein Center. Mercy has 234 acute care beds, 25 private rooms for outpatient surgery, 26 bed nursery with a Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, 28 primary and specialty care clinics, a medical staff of 250 physicians representing all major medical specialties and most sub-specialties and 1,400 employees. It was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1873 and became an affiliate of MercyOne in 2017. To learn more visit www.mercyiowacity.org.
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 6 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.