Brookwood Baptist Medical Center, part of the Advanced Neuroscience Network (ANN), earned the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's "Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke" Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll-Elite. The award recognizes the hospital's commitment to providing the most appropriate stroke treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

Hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all "Get With The Guidelines-Stroke" achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures to receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll-Elite, hospitals must meet quality measures developed to reduce the time between the patient's arrival at the hospital and treatment with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. Brookwood Baptist's achievement of the Target: Stroke Honor Roll-Elite means the stroke team treated 75 percent or more of acute ischemic stroke patients with IV tPA within 60 minutes of their arrival to the hospital.

To earn the Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, Brookwood Baptist's Primary Stroke Center met specific quality achievement measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated period.