North Colorado Medical Center Stroke Care Earns Award

Banner Health’s North Colorado Medical Center has received the American Heart Association’s Gold Plus Get With The Guidelines Stroke quality achievement award for its commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines, which ultimately leads to more lives saved and reduced disability.

Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the U.S. A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or bursts. When that happens, part of the brain cannot get the blood and oxygen it needs, so brain cells die. Early stroke detection and treatment are key to improving survival, minimizing disability, and accelerating recovery times.

Get With The Guidelines puts the expertise of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association to work for hospitals, helping ensure patient care is aligned with the latest evidence- and research-based guidelines. Get With The Guidelines – Stroke is an in-hospital program for improving stroke care by promoting consistent adherence to these guidelines, which can minimize the long-term effects of a stroke and even prevent death.

“We are committed to improving patient care by adhering to the latest treatment guidelines,” said Banner stroke program manager Brenda Tousley. “Get With The Guidelines makes it easier for our teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work daily, which studies show can help patients recover better. The end goal is to ensure more people can experience longer, healthier lives.”

Each year, program participants qualify for the award by demonstrating how their organization has committed to providing quality care for stroke patients. In addition to following treatment guidelines, Get With The Guidelines participants also educate patients to help them manage their health and recovery at home.

NCMC also received the American Heart Association’s Target Stroke Honor Roll award for meeting specific criteria that reduce the time between an eligible patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster alteplase.

A third award received by NCMC is the Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll. This recognition means the hospital achieved criteria that aim to ensure patients with Type 2 diabetes who might be at a higher risk for complications receive the most up-to-date, proven care when they are hospitalized due to stroke.

North Colorado Medical Center is a fully accredited, private, nonprofit facility licensed in Greeley, Colorado owned by Banner Health, a nonprofit health care system with 30 hospitals in six states. It serves as a regional medical center offering a comprehensive scope of community-based and specialty health care services for an area including southern Wyoming, western Nebraska, western Kansas, and northeastern Colorado. It offers Emergency care, cancer care, heart care, orthopedics, inpatient and outpatient surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, rehabilitation, intensive care, lab and medical imaging, and medical air transport and is certified by The Joint Commission as a Primary Stroke Center. For more information, visit bannerhealth.com/ncmc.