Miriam Hospital Stroke Center is First in RI to Receive National Designation
(posted July 5, 2006)
The Miriam Hospital is the first hospital in Rhode Island to receive designation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) as a Primary Stroke Center. The designation signifies that the hospital’s stroke program meets rigorous national standards and performance measurements in caring for stroke patients and offering state-of-the-art treatments.
According to the JCAHO reviewers, The Miriam’s Stroke Center is highly efficient. Patients are diagnosed and treated on average four times more promptly than in other stroke treatment hospitals. This was credited to the specific team training of Miriam staff and the rapid processing of stroke patients in acute care.
“This certification reflects our deep commitment to front-line stroke care in the region,” said Douglas DeOrchis, MD, director of The Miriam’s Stroke Center and clinical associate professor at Brown Medical School. “It is an important validation and means patients can count on The Miriam to deliver the highest level of stroke care across the continuum of care, from Emergency Department entry through rehabilitation and recovery. It also acknowledges the excellence of the entire stroke team, which includes doctors, nurses, therapists, technicians, researchers and support staff.”
To receive designation as a Primary Stroke Center, the hospital’s stroke program went through a comprehensive application process and submitted data on stroke admissions, treatment plans and outcomes. A JCAHO representative visited the emergency department and patient care areas and conducted interviews with staff and patients.
The time a hospital takes to administer the clot-busting drug tPA is one of the critical measurements examined during the JCAHO evaluation. Hospitals need to show that they can rapidly diagnose stroke and then administer treatment within three hours after symptoms begin.
“We know that rapid treatment for stroke, particularly the use of clot-busting drugs, can save lives and reduce disability. However, these drugs can only be used within the first few hours after someone has a stroke - which is why it’s so critical to have a multidisciplinary team in place that can respond rapidly in these cases,” DeOrchis says.
The Miriam Hospital’s stroke team has been a pioneer in comprehensive patient care and research. They developed Rhode Island’s first dedicated stroke center as defined by the Brain Attack Coalition in 2003, for rapid response in treating stroke patients. In addition, DeOrchis and his team recently performed the region’s first case* using the Merci Retrieval device—a corkscrew shaped device designed to snare and remove potentially fatal clots—without the assist of tPA.
The Miriam Hospital is only the fifth JCAHO-certified Primary Stroke Center in New England, joining three hospitals in Connecticut and one in Boston. Less than three percent of hospital’s nationwide are JCAHO-certified Primary Stroke Centers.
Stroke, which strikes about 700,000 people in the United States each year including approximately 3,000 Rhode Islanders, is the leading cause of disability and the third leading cause of death. Warning signs of stroke include sudden onset of the following symptoms:
- Numbness or weakness on one side of the face or body
- Confusion
- Difficulty speaking or understanding speech
- Trouble with vision in one or both eyes
- Difficulty walking or loss of balance
- Severe headache with no known cause