For release: November 5, 2005

							                                                                                News Release
For immediate release
April 2, 2012                                                                      Contact: Cyndi Fahrlander 816-943-2565


                         St. Joseph Medical Center Earns
                     Get With the Guidelines- Stroke Gold Plus
                           Quality Achievement Award
Kansas City, Mo. – St. Joseph Medical Center has earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke
Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes
St. Joseph’s commitment and success in implementing excellent care for stroke patients, according to evidence-
based guidelines.

“With a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement
Award recognizes St. Joseph as being one of the top hospitals in the country for providing aggressive, proven
stroke care,” says Michael Dorsey, CEO, St. Joseph Medical Center. “We will continue with our focus on
providing care that has been shown in the scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients with
evidence-based protocols.”

To earn the award, St. Joseph achieved a 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke
Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals. It also achieved 75 percent or
higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures.

Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke program was developed to help hospitals ensure that the care they provide to
stroke patients is aligned with the latest scientific guidelines. The program stresses the importance of using the
“teachable moment,”--the time soon after a patient has had a stroke, when patients are most likely to listen to
and follow their healthcare professionals’ guidance. Studies have shown that patients taught how to manage
their risk factors while still in the hospital reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is one of the leading causes
of death and serious, long-term disability in the United States. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40
seconds; someone dies of a stroke every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each
year.


St. Joseph Medical Center is a 310-bed facility providing a wide range of acute care and outpatient services from a 24-hour
emergency department to state-of-the-art cardiovascular care. St. Joseph has earned the Magnet designation from The American
Nurses Credentialing Center for excellence in nursing services. The accredited Stroke Center at St. Joseph provides advanced
treatments available at few centers in the Kansas City area and the Breast Center is a nationally recognized leader in breast MRI
biopsy. Visit St. Joseph on the Web at stjosephkc.com.




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