Day Kimball Hospital Achieves High Marks for Stroke Care, Fastest Response Time in CT and Nearby MA and RI

Day Kimball Hospital achieved 100% compliance in 2016 for every clinical core measure used by The Joint Commission in granting the hospital Advanced Certification as a Primary Stroke Center. Day Kimball Hospital has held the certification since 2013, with the most recent two-year re-certification granted in 2016. Evaluation of the hospital’s performance in these measures was part of a recent mid-cycle certification review by The Joint Commission. Day Kimball Hospital also maintains the fastest response rate to strokes among all hospitals in Connecticut, as well as compared to the nearest hospitals in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The achievement of 100% compliance in clinical measures means that every patient who was treated for stroke as an inpatient at Day Kimball Hospital in 2016 received the following six recommended components of care: 

• prophylactic treatment to prevent venous thromboembolism (a potentially fatal blood clot),
• anticoagulation therapy for atrial fibrillation, 
• antithrombotic therapy by the end of the second day in the hospital, 
• assessment for rehabilitation, 
• and continued antithrombotic therapy as well as statin medication upon discharge from the hospital. 

A total of 173 strokes or presumed strokes were treated at Day Kimball Hospital in 2016; 49 of those cases went on to become inpatients.

There is a seventh core measure not related to clinical care that The Joint Commission uses in reviewing Day Kimball Hospital’s certification status in which the hospital did not achieve 100% compliance. That measure requires monthly community outreach and education about stroke. Although Day Kimball Hospital did provide stroke education on 14 occasions in 2016, that outreach did not occur in even monthly increments and so there were three months in which no outreach occurred. 

DKH Emergency Department Clinical Educator and Stroke Coordinator Andrea Blythe says the near-perfect scores in these measures speak to the excellence of stroke care provided at Day Kimball Hospital.

“The expectation from The Joint Commission to maintain certification is 80% compliance with these measures, so for Day Kimball to have achieved 100% in every clinical measure for over a year now is incredible,” Blythe said.

Dr. Steven Wexler, medical director of Day Kimball Hospital’s emergency department and national medical director for NES Health, a leading national provider of emergency medicine management services, credits the hard work of Day Kimball’s emergency department staff and the commitment and involvement of the hospital’s other departments and its leadership with the achievement of such high marks.

“We have an exceptional stroke program here at Day Kimball, and that’s in large part due to the strong support for the program from our administration and the incredible collaboration from almost every other clinical department of the hospital that allows us to provide the fastest and highest quality stroke care possible. In my role with NES I’ve reviewed emergency departments across the nation and so I speak from experience when I say that Day Kimball has a truly unique organizational culture and commitment to its patients as a community hospital, and that’s what makes the difference in care,” Dr. Wexler said.

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