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Stroke Quality Improvement Awards 2023
2023 Award Categories
Awards are given to hospital stroke programs in Minnesota that implemented the best quality improvement initiatives in the following categories:
- Continuous Impact: This is an award for starting an initiative that created a meaningful and long-term improvement in quality of stroke care.
- Operational Excellence: This is an award for initiative that focused on collaboration between different programs to improve quality of stroke care.
- Outstanding Achievement: This is an award for initiative that led to evidence-based positive change in quality of stroke care.
- Community Champion: This award is for an initiative that focuses on filling a community need related to quality stroke care.
2023 Continuous Impact Award Recipients
Essentia Health Virginia:
Acute Stroke Ready Hospital
Virginia, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Increase the number of patients arriving by emergency medical services (EMS) to decrease Door-to-CT times.
- Action Plan: Provide community education on the signs and symptoms of stroke with a focus on adults over the age of 65 to call 911 for emergency medical care.
- Results: Made meaningful connections with community to promote stroke awareness and plans to expand outreach.
Award Qualifications
Essentia Health Virginia received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Helping community members recognize signs and symptoms of stroke.
- Using data to focus efforts on the population most impacted by improvement.
M Health Fairview Woodwinds:
Acute Stroke Ready Hospital
Woodbury, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Increase the inpatient nursing knowledge around the care of ischemic stroke patients.
- Action Plan: Create an acute stroke ready class for charge nurses and people that care for admitted patients.
- Results: Nurses felt more comfortable caring for stroke patients after taking the course.
Award Qualifications
M Health Fairview Woodwinds received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Dedication to providing the best stroke care and keeping patients close to home when possible.
- Scaled up initiative by offering the continual educational opportunity to all Acute Stroke Ready Hospitals in the system, with plans to expand.
2023 Operational Excellence Award Recipients
Sanford Bemidji Medical Center:
Acute Stroke Ready Hospital
Bemidji, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Implement new thrombolytic therapy and decrease the amount of time between patient arrival to treatment.
- Action Plan: Bring together multidisciplinary group to create a plan for education and other shared goals. Establish data and feedback plan to share progress enterprise wide.
- Results: Saw an improvement in time sensitive treatment measures, such as shortening the amount of time from treatment order to administration and time from patient arrival to treatment overall.
Award Qualifications
Sanford Bemidji Medical Center received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Great coordination between multiple departments to ensure a smooth transition to new stroke treatment and process.
- Demonstrated strong teamwork to successfully make a significant change in operations.
Mayo Clinic Health System:
Acute Stroke Ready Hospitals, Primary Stroke Center, Comprehensive Stroke Center
Albert Lea, Austin, Cannon Falls, Fairmont, Lake City, Mankato, New Prague, Redwing, Rochester, St. James, Waseca, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Increase support and coordination of Acute Stroke Ready Hospitals in the health systems to improve care for stroke patients.
- Action Plan: Standardize the care of stroke patients across sites by reviewing all documents with input from stroke coordinators. Overhaul education and consolidate into a single learning module for all sites to use.
- Results: Standardized education, protocols, and documentation to provide consistent care across all Acute Stroke Ready Hospitals in health system. Established network of support between all Mayo Clinic Health System stroke designated hospitals in Minnesota.
Award Qualifications
Mayo Clinic Health System received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Clear example of the power in collaborating and building relationships across the health system to break down barriers, improve performance, and increase job satisfaction.
- Significant impact on operations that will have a lasting effect.
Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients
Essentia Health:
Primary Stroke Center, Thrombectomy-Capable Stroke Center, Comprehensive Stroke Center
Brainerd and Duluth, Minnesota; Fargo, North Dakota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Increase nursing swallow screen compliance in all Essentia Health System hospitals.
- Action Plan: Review and update the electronic best practice alert to accurately capture stroke patient population and improve compliance, such as including patients that complained of dizziness.
- Results: Programs have seen improved and consistent swallow screen compliance.
Award Qualifications
Essentia Health received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Thoroughly examined data to find what patients were being missed in the best practice alert.
- System-wide dedication and effort to improve identification of a potentially serious complication of stroke.
St. Cloud Hospital:
Comprehensive Stroke Center
St. Cloud, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Improve time to treatment for patients that experience a stroke while already in the hospital.
- Action Plan: Pilot using a mobile tablet to aid in the rapid assessment of hospitalized patients experiencing a new onset of stroke-like symptoms to involved the stroke provider sooner.
- Results: Providers were able to assess patients in shorter amounts of time from baseline, collect a more accurate last known well time, and quickly decide on next steps for care. Treatment administration time decreased.
Award Qualifications
St. Cloud Hospital received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Great use of data to identify opportunity for improvement.
- Creative and innovating approach to ensure all stroke patients receive timely assessment and treatment.
2023 Community Champion Award Recipients
CHI St. Joseph's Health Park Rapids:
Acute Stroke Ready Hospital
Park Rapids, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Become a designated stroke program that utilizes best practices for identifying and treating stroke patients in a timely manner.
- Action Plan: Establish a program using nurse champions for education, performance improvement, change management, and data entry to become ready for stroke designation.
- Results: Successfully became an Acute Stroke Ready Hospital and improved stroke care measures.
Award Qualifications
CHI St. Joseph's received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Addressed the community need for a stroke designated hospital in their area.
- Dedication to providing the best care for their community and expanding access to promote health equity.
Last Updated: 01/09/2024