Sutter Roseville certified as Primary Stroke Center

Roseville, Calif. – Sutter Roseville Medical Center has received certification from the Joint Commission and is now an Advanced Primary Stroke Center.

The Joint Commission, an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies hospitals across the United States to provide acute stroke treatment, reviewed and evaluated Sutter Roseville Medical Center’s stroke program earlier this year and determined that it qualified as a center of excellence for stroke service.

‘Research has shown that having Advanced Primary Stroke Centers in a community helps reduce morbidity, mortality and disability related to stroke, and this is mostly due to the increased awareness in the community and the consistency of quality care at the Primary Stroke Centers,’ said Asim Mahmood, M.D., medical director of stroke services for Sutter Health Sacramento Sierra Region.

Dr. Mahmood, whose office is at Sutter Roseville, joined Sutter Health earlier this year, and one of his priorities is to have certified Advanced Primary Stroke Centers at all of the Sutter hospitals in the Sacramento region. Both Sutter Medical Center hospitals in Sacramento – Sutter General and Sutter Memorial – have received certification, and Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital should be notified of its certification in early 2011, followed by Sutter hospitals in Davis, Solano County and Amador County.

Standardize stroke care

‘Having hospitals that are all Primary Stroke Centers helps standardize stroke care and bring awareness to the staff and community with a hope to improve outcomes,’ said Dr. Mahmood. ‘In addition, multiple facilities that are connected and taking similar care of patients are attractive sites for clinical research, which is another service to local communities.’

Part of the mission of Advanced Primary Stroke Centers is to educate the public on how to recognize stroke symptoms and to get to a certified hospital immediately. One of the most effective treatments for a stroke is the clot-busting medication called tissue plasminogen activator, commonly referred to as tPA, but it has to be administered within three hours of the onset of stroke.

Sutter Roseville Medical Center has been especially successful in its administration of tPA. Nationally, the rate of tPA administration among stroke victims is 4 percent. In 2009, Sutter Roseville treated 18 percent of stroke victims with tPA, and 100 percent of patients who could be treated with tPA were given the treatment.

‘Our goal is to educate the public on the importance of receiving the proper care in a timely manner,’ said Tess Carter, stroke program coordinator at Sutter Roseville Medical Center and Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital. ‘We want to meet with civic, religious and other community groups to get the word out.’

Stroke alert response teams

Sutter Roseville and Sutter Auburn Faith both have organized stroke alert response teams made up of an Emergency Department physician and registered nurse, nursing supervisor a board-certified neurologist specializing in strokes, and other clinicians.

Sutter has the most comprehensive stroke program in the Placer County-Sacramento area, with three board-certified stroke neurologists, specialized neurointerventionalists and neurosurgeons, and neuroradiology imaging technology. In addition, the Sutter Rehabilitation Center on the Sutter Roseville campus has built a reputation in just two years as being the premier center for stroke rehab in the region.

The stroke programs at Sutter Roseville Medical Center and Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital are part of the Sutter Neuroscience Institute, which has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nation’s top programs for neurology and neurosurgery.