FLORENCE–Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital has received the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Silver-Plus Quality Achievement Award for implementing specific quality improvement measures outlined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for the treatment of stroke patients.
Get With The Guidelines–Stroke helps hospital teams provide the most up-to-date, research-based guidelines 
with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. ECM Hospital earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement measures for the rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period. These measures include aggressive use of medications and risk-reduction therapies aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.
“ECM is dedicated to improving the quality of stroke care and The American Heart Association/American Stroke
Russell Pigg ECM Hospital CEO
Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke helps us achieve that goal,” said Russell Pigg, CEO. “With this award, our hospital demonstrates our commitment to ensure that our patients receive care based on internationally-respected clinical guidelines.”
“We are pleased to recognize Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital for their commitment and dedication to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., national chairman of the Get With The Guidelines steering committee and Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines quality improvement measures can reduce patients’ length of stays and 30-day readmission rates and reduce disparity gaps in care.”
Get With The Guidelines–Stroke also helps ECM’s staff implement prevention measures, which include educating stroke patients to manage their risk factors and to be aware of warning signs for stroke, and ensuring they take their medications properly.
In addition, ECM Hospital has established an internal neuro-hospitalist’s program. Beginning
Dr. Rodney Soto
in October, ECM will have a neurologist in-house, seven days a week. The neuro-hospitalist is specialty trained to assist attending physicians with patients suffering from all neurological
disorders, but especially stroke. Dr. Rodney Soto has joined ECM and serves as both a vascular neuro-hospitalist and medical director of the hospital’s stroke care initiative. Joining Dr. Soto is Dr. Paola Tumminello, a local neurologist who is transferring to the hospital-based practice.
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the number four cause of death and a leading cause of adult 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.
For more information about stroke care and services, or other services provided by ECM Hospital, please contact Tom Whetstone, Communications Director at (256) 768-8888 or jtwhetstone@chgroup.org.
About Get With The Guidelines
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 4 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org/quality or heart.org/myhealthcare.
MEDIA RELEASE/ELIZA COFFEE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL/Tom Whetstone
