Porter Health System is participating in the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®–Stroke program. The goal of the program is to improve the overall quality of care for stroke patients by improving acute stroke treatment and preventing future strokes and cardiovascular illness.
Visit the Porter Health System website
Valparaiso Campus
814 LaPorte Avenue
Valparaiso, IN 46383
Phone: 219-263-4600
As a participant in the program, Porter employs proven science-based treatment guidelines, including those developed by the American Stroke Association, American Heart Association and Brain Attack Coalition. These guidelines address acute stroke management, primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, secondary prevention of strokes and the establishment of primary stroke centers.
As a Get With The Guidelines–Stroke participating hospital, Porter uses a comprehensive system for providing rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke when patients are admitted to the emergency department. This includes always being equipped to provide brain-imaging scans, making neurologists available to conduct patient evaluations and using clot-busting medications when appropriate.
Additionally, the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program is a precursor for Porter to receive its final certification by the Joint Commission as a Primary Stroke Center which is expected to take place in the next few months. Porter also provides the American Stroke Association, American Heart Association and Brain Attack Coalition with data on an ongoing basis. During the last six months, Porter has collected data, and actually followed 112 stroke impacted patients – either diagnosed with a TIA, transient ischemic attack, or an acute ischemic stroke – and reported positive outcomes for 72 percent of the patients, which is above the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program national average of 67 percent.
Porter is also increasing its efforts to prevent secondary strokes through the aggressive use of medications such as statins and anti-platelets as indicated in the secondary stroke prevention guidelines. Other methods include the treatment of atrial fibrillation and atherosclerosis and management of smoking cessation, weight, exercise, diabetes and cholesterol.
“Porter Health System is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of care and protocols for treating stroke patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, MD, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and improving outcomes of stroke patients.”
According to Porter Neurologist and Stroke Specialist Virgil DiBiase, MD, “Fifteen years ago, stroke patients were basically ignored because it was thought not much could be done for them. Now we have clot dissolving drugs and evidenced-based practices that show us patients who have a stroke can get better and go on to live a normal life. It’s really dramatic to see how well a comprehensive plan for treating stroke works.”
According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of serious, long-term disability. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 45 seconds; someone dies of a stroke every three minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.