PENSACOLA, FLA. - The American Stroke Association recently awarded Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola its Get With The GuidelinesSM-Stroke Silver Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes Sacred Heart's continued success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment and education according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.

Sacred Heart's Regional Stroke Center is Northwest Florida's top-rated stroke program that features a diagnostic and treatment team dedicated to saving lives and minimizing damage caused by stroke. Led by a specially trained critical care neurologist, our team of radiologists, neurologists, interventional radiologists and vascular surgeons works together to rapidly diagnose and administer life-saving treatment.

To receive the Stroke Silver Performance Achievement Award, Sacred Heart consistently followed the treatment guidelines in the Get With The Guidelines program for 12 consecutive months. These include aggressive use of clot-busting medications and clot prevention, cholesterol reducing drugs, and smoking cessation. The 12 -month evaluation period is the second stage in an ongoing self-evaluation by the hospital to continually reach the 85 percent compliance level needed to sustain this award.

"The American Stroke Association commends Sacred Heart Hospital for its success in implementing standards of care and protocols," said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., national Get With The Guidelines Steering Committee Member and director of the 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 the American Stroke Association, each year approximately 780,000 people suffer a stroke - 600,000 are first attacks and 180,000 are recurrent. Of stroke survivors aged 49 and older, 21 percent of men and 24 percent of women die within a year.  For those aged 70 and older, the percentages are even higher.

For more information, please call (850) 416-7000 or visit www.sacred-heart.org.