MAYWOOD, IL – For the ninth year in a row, Loyola University Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

The award recognizes Loyola’s commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

To receive the Gold Plus award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines quality measures.

Loyola also was named to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite. To qualify for the Honor Roll, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-busting IV drug tPA. The drug is used to treat the most common type of stroke, called ischemic, which is caused by a blood clot. 

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, someone dies of a stroke every four minutes and nearly 800,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.  
 
Loyola’s Stroke Center offers a nationally recognized team of experts in every facet of stroke-related care, including emergency medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, neurophysiology, neuroradiology, rehabilitative services, social work, pharmacy and specialty nursing.