Heart/Stroke Association Honors UR Medicine for Highest Quality Care

The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA) has once again recognized UR Medicine and its Strong Memorial Hospital for achieving its highest standards of care for stroke, heart failure, and resuscitation. 

Strong Memorial Hospital has received the AHA/ASA Get With The Guidelines program’s highest honor, the Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award for a fifth consecutive year. The hospital was also tapped for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll, which recognizes hospitals that have consistently and successfully reduced door-to-needle time – the window of time between a stroke victim’s arrival at the hospital, the diagnosis of an acute ischemic stroke, and the administration of the clot-busting drug tPA. 

“We are proud to earn this recognition, however we continue to work to improve time-to-treatment for people who are suffering a stroke.  Early treatment is proven to preserve brain function and enhance recovery for each patient,” said neurologist Curtis Benesch, M.D., M.P.H., medical director of the UR Medicine Comprehensive Stroke Center.

The AHA/ASA presented its Heart Failure Gold Achievement Award for the sixth year in a row, and the Resuscitation Gold Achievement Award, recognizing to the hospital’s treatment and rehabilitation of heart attack patients. 

“Our teams work very hard to provide the best possible care and are always striving to improve outcomes for our patients,” said Leway Chen, M.D., M.P.H., medical director of the UR Medicine Program in Heart Failure, Artificial Heart and Transplantation. 

The Program in Heart Failure and Transplantation is the largest program in upstate New York dedicated to providing advanced heart failure care.  In addition to transplantation, the team offers a variety of life-saving devices, such as heart pumps, ventricular assist devices, and total artificial hearts.

The AHA/ASA Get With the Guidelines program recognizes hospitals that have reached aggressive goals of treating heart failure and stroke patients and comply with core standard levels of care. The list of honorees will be publishing in July in the “America’s Best Hospitals” edition of U.S. News and World Report. For more information about the Get With The Guidelines program, visit the AHA/ASA website.