Sparks Health System has been recognized for its stroke care by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Sparks received the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the associations. It is the fourth year in a row Sparks has received the award.
Sparks earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients. Sparks 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. This is the ninth year the hospital has participated in the Get With The Guidelines program.
The hospital is one of only two hospitals in the state considered a Certified Training Center For Advanced Stroke Life Support through the Arkansas Department of Health’s Stroke Registry. Sparks provides emergency stroke telemedicine service to more than 15 regional hospitals.
In December, Sparks hosted the state’s first Stroke Registry Quality Improvement Conference. Healthcare providers and emergency medical staff from across the state came to Sparks to learn how to optimize the quality of pre-hospital and in-hospital stroke care.