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By the Joint Commission

U.S. News & World Report rates GRMC as High Performing Hospital for Stroke Care

Guam Regional Medical City (GRMC) recently received certification from The Joint Commission (TJC) as an “Advanced Primary Stroke Center.”  However, the good news does not end there because GRMC was also selected by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation’s “High Performing” hospitals for stroke care as part of the U.S. News and World Report 2022-2023 Best Hospitals Procedures and Conditions Ratings.

According to their website, “U.S. News Best Hospitals ranks hospitals in the U.S. in 15 adult specialties as well as recognized hospitals by state, metro and regional areas for their work in 20 more widely performed procedures and conditions.” One such condition is stroke, and GRMC is ranked in the top category of “High Performing” among more than 4,400 hospitals nation-wide that were evaluated. Hospitals that treat enough patients to be evaluated are rated one of three ways for each procedure or condition: high performing, average, or below average.

U.S. News Best Hospitals states that “sources of data for the ratings include Medicare administrative claims, Medicare Care Compare, the American Hospital Association annual survey, publicly available data from clinical registries, and external designations. The ratings reflect care received by patients who are age 65 and older since they tend to have higher incidence and severity of comorbidities upon admission and illnesses that are more advanced than those of younger patients. The ratings use evaluation criteria that reflect a relationship between a hospital’s program structure, operational process, and patient outcomes.”

“GRMC’s stroke program success is built upon two main aspects of care including the 1) emergency aspect and 2) multidisciplinary aspect,” said Elisabeth Collins (DNP, APRN-NP), stroke program coordinator. “The emergency aspect, commonly referred to as ‘code stroke,’ involves immediate medicine interventions such as thrombolytics and/or surgical interventions such as a thrombectomy or neurosurgery. The multidisciplinary aspect is the care after the patient is stabilized and involves diverse care teams including nursing, emergency department, radiology, laboratory, pharmacy, neuroscience, operating room (particularly the Cath Lab), speech therapy, nutrition, social work, and patient education to name just a few,” Collins added.

Dr. Justin Hale, a neurologist and sleep specialist, as well as GRMC’s stroke program medical director, expressed that “a big part of the reason that GRMC earned the prestigious recognitions from The Joint Commission and U.S. News and World Report is that we are committed to quality improvement and management processes, tracking care data and reporting it to national databases, and constantly evaluating patient outcomes to ensure the best quality care is provided at our hospital.”

“I am overwhelmed with pride,” said Alan Funtanilla, President & CEO. “I could not be prouder of our entire hospital team and the quality care that we provide, which are the ultimate reasons for these prominent awards from The Joint Commission and U.S. News and World Report.”

For more information about the U.S. News and World Report 2022-2023 Best Hospitals Procedures and Conditions Ratings for Stroke, visit the website at https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/hospital-ratings/stroke.

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