Rural Stroke Hospital Recognition

Get With the Guidelines

LeConte Medical Center has received The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Rural Recognition Bronze award, which recognizes efforts to address the unique health needs of rural communities and eliminate health care outcome disparities.

Focused on Brain Health

The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, recognizes the importance of health care services provided to people living in rural areas by rural hospitals that play a vital role in initiation of timely evidence-based care. For that reason, all rural hospitals participating in Get With The Guidelines^® – Stroke are eligible to receive award recognition based on a unique methodology focused on early acute stroke performance metrics.

“LeConte Medical Center is committed to improving care by adhering to the latest treatment guidelines and streamlining processes to ensure timely and proper care for strokes,” said Callie West, stroke coordinator. “The Get With The Guidelines programs make it easier for our teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis, which helps people in Sevier County and surrounding areas experience longer, healthier lives.”

LeConte Medical Center is also a steward in the community for stroke education in children and families through a staff-created book titled “Can My Dog Have a Stroke?”. The book explains the signs and symptoms of stroke, and what to do if these are recognized.

“We are able to reach children as well as their family members when they are instructed to take the book home and read it to family and friends. It has been a very successful tool in reaching the various demographic members of our community,” said West.

The award recognizes hospitals for their efforts toward acute stroke care excellence demonstrated by composite score compliance to guideline-directed care for intravenous thrombolytic therapy, timely hospital inter-facility transfer, dysphagia screening, symptom timeline and deficit assessment documentation, emergency medical services communication, brain imaging and stroke expert consultation.

“Patients and health care professionals in Sevierville face unique health care challenges and opportunities,” said Karen E. Joynt Maddox, M.D., MPH, volunteer expert for the American Heart Association, co-author on “Call to Action: Rural Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association” and co-director of the Center for Health Economics and Policy at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “LeConte Medical Center has furthered this important work to improve care for all Americans, regardless of where they live.”