West Florida Healthcare Achieves Status as "Advanced Primary Stroke Center"

West Florida Healthcare has earned the Gold Seal of Approval™ from The Joint Commission as an Advanced Primary Stroke Center. West Florida Healthcare earned this distinction after the Joint Commission conducted an on-site review in March.

Each year about 700,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke, the nation’s third leading cause of death. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 45 seconds and someone dies of a stroke every 3.1 minutes. Stroke is a leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States, with about 4.7 million stroke survivors alive today.

"We’re proud to have achieved this important distinction," says Carol Saxton, Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services. "Certification by the Joint Commission as an Advanced Primary Stroke Center recognizes our hospital’s commitment to providing outstanding stroke care to our patients and our community."

The Joint Commission’s Primary Stroke Center Certification is based on the recommendations for primary stroke centers published by the Brain Attack Coalition and the American Stroke Association’s statements/guidelines for stroke care. The Joint Commission launched the program—the nation’s first—in 2003.

Programs applying for advanced certification must meet the requirements for Disease-Specific Care Certification plus additional, clinically-specific requirements and expectations.

Certified primary stroke centers:

• Use a standardized method of delivering care based on the Brain Attack Coalition recommendations for establishment of primary stroke centers. 
• Support a patient’s self-management activities. 
• Tailor treatment and intervention to individual needs. 
• Promote the flow of patient information across settings and providers, while protecting patient rights, security and privacy. 
• Analyze and use standardized performance measure data to continually improve treatment plans.
• Demonstrate their application of and compliance with the clinical practice guidelines published by the AHA/ASA or equivalent evidence-based guidelines.

To complement its newly-acquired certification as an Advanced Primary Stroke Center, West Florida Hospital is also the only facility in the area to offer all-private rooms as well as the area’s only Accredited Chest Pain Center. The West Florida Healthcare campus includes the all private room acute care hospital, the area’s only comprehensive physical rehabilitation hospital, and a mental health facility. Affiliated with HCA, the nation’s leading provider of healthcare, West Florida Healthcare offers major services in cardiology/cardiovascular surgery, oncology, neurology/neurosurgery, orthopedics, emergency care, behavioral health, obstetrics, rehabilitative medicine and many other medical specialties. For more information, call (850) 494-3212.