Griffin Hospital is now an official, state-designated “Primary Stroke Center.”
The hospital received the designation after meeting the state Department of Health’s requirements to improve stroke care.
Griffin officials received the designation during a ceremony Friday from Gary St. Amand, a health program associate with the Department of Health’s “Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program.”
The state’s Primary Stroke Center program in 2008 to improve health outcomes for people who have strokes. Two years earlier, the state department of health conducted a survey of acute care hospitals in the state to identify comprehensive stroke services for stroke patients.
The review showed that while most of the hospitals had a formal stroke care protocol, only 52 percent had an acute “stroke team:” a group that evaluates suspected stroke patients within 15 minutes of a patient’s arrival.
Carolyn Sylvester, a registered nurse and Griffin’s stroke program coordinator, said the hospital worked over the last two years to review its stroke protocols and to improve patient treatment.
“What we found out was we were providing care to our stroke patients, but we weren’t providing the optimal care. We could do better,” she said.
The care is consistent with the guidelines and recommendations from the American Stroke Association and the Brain Attack Coalition.
The designation, Sylvester said, “is a huge honor.”
St. Amand said the Primary Stroke Center program is a voluntary venture, but it helps hospitals to improve offerings.
It’s to make sure that “when someone walks in the door with a stroke, that they have all the resources available … to very rapidly address someone having a stroke,” he said. “They’ve worked to achieve this, to be able to offer these resources to respond to stroke victims.”
The designation is valid for two years.
