Guideline Adherence Reduces Pneumonia In Stroke Patients

Closer adherence to treatment guidelines issued by the American Heart Association resulted in a 15 percentage point drop in pneumonia in stroke patients.

AsianScientist (Jun 11, 2014) – Chinese stroke patients were less likely to acquire pneumonia or die from the stroke when hospitals followed treatment guidelines, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014.

Closer adherence to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines® program led to a drop in pneumonia from 20 percent to almost 5 percent. However, only 55.5 percent of patients received all guideline-recommended treatments for which they were eligible.

Developed with the goal to save lives and hasten recovery, the Get With The Guidelines® programs have improved the lives of nearly 5 million patients since 2001. Studies show that consistent application of these programs can lead to better recoveries and lower risks of ending up back in the hospital.

Researchers looked at 24,597 stroke patients in 221 Chinese hospitals from January 2012 to February 2013. They found that patients whose treatment program had the lowest adherence to stroke performance measures had a death rate of 4.8 percent, compared to 0.4 percent among the patients whose treatment program had the highest adherence rate.

Furthermore, the study also found that fewer than 14 percent of ischemic stroke patients received the clot-busting drug tPA, which can improve blood flow to the brain and improve the chances of recovering from an ischemic stroke if given within three hours of the onset of stroke symptoms.

According to Dr. Li Zixiao, the study’s lead author and a neurologist at Beijing Tiantan Hospital, the low rate of tPA use could be due to several factors, including delays in laboratory testing and high medication costs.

“In China, stroke is the major cause of death and long-term disability and improving the quality of stroke care is a national priority,” said Dr. Li. “Practitioners should make efforts to increase adherence to all stroke performance measures.”

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Source: American Heart Association.
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