Strokes can be devastating to families as brain cells are damaged and often times result in severe disabilities. The severity of the effects of the stroke often depend on how fast, and how good the treatment was. If you or a loved one has a stroke, it is best to take him or her to a certified stroke center in order to get the best care available.
Certified stroke centers only get certified after an evaluation. If they pass the evaluation they get certification. So, the question that is on everybody’s mind is what is evaluated? In order for a stroke center to be certified, the evaluation and resulting certification decision will be based on an assessment of the following:
1. Compliance with consensus-based national standards. (these deal with procedure, timeliness, etc.)
2. Effective use of primary stroke center recommendations and clinical practice guidelines to manage and optimize care. (these guidelines and recommendations are set for the patient’s best interest.)
3. Performance measurement and improvement activities. (Basically unless they do a good job handling previous strokes they do not get certified.)
Most certified stroke centers get re-evaluated each year. Because the certification is only good for one year, you can feel confident that if you attend a center, hospital or clinic that is a certified stroke center you will receive the best, and most up to date, care available.
If a stroke center successfully demonstrate compliance in all three of the above areas they are awarded with the one year certificate.Once they have the initial certification, a one-year extension can be given, but is contingent on the center submitting an acceptable assessment of compliance with standards and performance measurement and management activities.So, in other words, they have to pass the evaluation again, and then they also will receive an on-site review every two years.
The American Stroke Association, in collaboration with a large multi-specialty advisory group and the Brain Attack Coalition, worked closely with JCAHO to establish the criteria for certification. JCAHO is the group that authorizes the certification for such stroke centers.
The American Stroke Association (ASA) has a great concern for stroke centers to become certified, thus they provide many important tools and resources to help hospitals become ready for certification. For example, they provide the following:
1. Acute Stroke Treatment Program (ASTP): This program has been very successful as it is a toolkit that was designed to help hospitals build the critical foundation and infrastructure to become a primary stroke center.As a part of the ASTP, the ASA leads workshops across the country to help hospitals come together to discuss infrastructure needs and how to overcome challenges in setting up a primary stroke center.
2. Get With The Guidelines/ Stroke: this is a continuous quality improvement program that the ASA implemented to help hospitals begin the process of collecting and analyzing their stroke data. It is also a system that provides a continuous way for physicians and hospital staff to monitor their performance with guidelines, and keep them up to date.
3. The American Stroke Association also provides numerous professional education opportunities in order to help stroke teams gain continuing education which is part of the requirement for becoming a certified stroke center.
As you can see, the ASA has done a lot to ensure that if you have a stroke you will be treated in a facility that can handle the problem, and have up to date research, knowledge and materials to treat you properly. So, choose one of the certified stroke centers for the best treatment.