Lake Pointe Medical Center earns award for heart failure, stroke care

ROWLETT, TX (December 1, 2014) Lake Pointe Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Gold-Plus Achievement Award and the Get With The Guidelines^®-Stroke Silver-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for the treatment of heart failure and stroke patients.

LMPC CEO Brett Lee stated, “Our medical staff continuously provides exemplary care to our patients. We’re proud of this award because it is a testament to LakePointe’s hard work and dedication to excellence when it comes to providing high-quality heart failure and stroke care.”

The program recognizes hospitals that achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Achievement indicators and Stroke Achievement Measures. Hospitals recognized must also achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with at least five of the Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Quality measures and five of the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Quality Measures for 12 consecutive months and provide 50 percent or more of applicable acute ischemic stroke patients with intravenous thrombolytic therapy in less than 60 minutes.

Implementation of the program in hospitals across the country ensures that hospital teams utilize the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines for care with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for heart failure and stroke patients. These measures include aggressive use of medications and risk-reduction therapies aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of heart failure and stroke patients.

LPMC also received the association’s Target: Stroke Honor Roll for meeting stroke quality measures that reduce the time between hospital arrival and treatment with the clot-buster tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. People who suffer a stroke who receive the drug within three hours of the onset of symptoms may recover quicker and are less likely to suffer severe disability.

“We are pleased to recognize Lake Pointe Medical Center for its commitment and dedication to heart failure and stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine atHarvardMedicalSchool. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce patients’ length of stays and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparity gaps in care.”

Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure improves LPMC’s patient care by providing medical staff access to the most up-to-date research, clinical tools and resources. Get With The Guidelines–Stroke also helps LPMC’s medical staff implement prevention measures, which include educating stroke patients to manage their risk factors and to be aware of warning signs for stroke, and ensuring they take their medications properly. Hospitals can make customized patient education materials available upon discharge, based on the patients’ individual risk profiles.

In addition to this honor from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, LPMC was one of 10 Tenet Healthcare hospitals [NYSE: THC] selected this year to receive the company’s Circle of Excellence Award, which recognized outstanding operational performance during 2013. LPMC also received the Patient Satisfaction Award, indicating five-star ratings from hospital patients.

  heart failure, Lake Pointe Medical Center, stroke