LCHS receives award for efforts to improve rural stroke care
LOWVILLE- Lewis County Health System has received the American Heart Association’s 'Get With The Guidelines - Rural Stroke' Silver Award for efforts to optimize stroke care and eliminate rural health care outcome disparities.
"I applaud our team for their commitment to stroke care excellence and this achievement of elevating LCHS from bronze to silver recognition this past year,” said LCHS CEO Gerry Cayer.
The award recognizes hospitals for their efforts toward acute stroke care excellence demonstrated by composite score compliance to guideline directed care for intravenous thrombolytic therapy, timely hospital inter-facility transfer, dysphagia screening, symptom timeline and deficit assessment documentation, emergency medical services communication, brain imaging and stroke expert consultation.
“We are proud that our team at Lewis County Health System is being recognized for the important work we do every day to improve the lives of people in Lewis County who are affected by stroke, giving them the best possible chance of recovery and survival,” said Marcy Teal, BSN, RN, LCHS Chief Nursing Officer.
“As a hospital in a rural community, we deal with extended interfacility transportation times and limited staffing resources. We've made it a goal to ensure those hurdles do not affect the standard of care our stroke patients receive.”
According to LCHS, people who live in rural communities live an average of three years fewer than their urban counterparts, have a 40% higher likelihood of developing heart disease and face a 30% increased risk for stroke mortality — a gap that has grown over the past two decades.
The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, recognizes the importance of health care services provided to people living in rural areas by rural hospitals that play a vital role in the initiation of timely evidence-based care.
For that reason, all rural hospitals participating in Get With The Guidelines - Stroke are eligible to receive award recognition based on a unique methodology focused on early acute stroke performance metrics.
In submitted LCHS photo: Lewis County Emergency Department Nurses, Medical Director, and members of the Rural Healthcare Outcomes team front row left to right Marcy Teal, Shannon Der, Rebecca Keefer, Falicia Bacon, Charity Glenn, Randy Mullin. Back row left to right Georgie Murphy, Emily Paulsen, Lucy Austin, Tracie Davoy, Dawn Rennie, Devon Doll, and Dr. Mathis.
