Diamond Stroke Center 

When someone you love is experiencing a stroke and requires emergency care, it's reassuring to know expert help is immediately available. Stroke care requires a dedicated team that fights stroke 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Diamond Stroke Center at Abington Memorial Hospital is designed to diagnose, treat and manage patients with stroke. The center has committed its services to the community by interacting and teaching people about stroke warning signs and prevention.

The Diamond Stroke Center consistently sets goals to improve patient outcomes. A fully integrated and multidisciplinary neuro team work together to accomplish these goals. Team members include: a neurologist, neurointerventionalist, neurosurgeon, nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, case management, social service, nutrition services, pastoral care services, geriatric clinical nurse specialist, pharmacist, and stroke program coordinator.

The Diamond Stroke Center also has a dedicated stroke committee, which meets every eight weeks to review stroke care and set new goals. This is a dedicated committee to evaluate our processes and outcomes. Members of the committee include: director of Medicine, Stroke director, Rehabilitation physician, Stroke Program coordinator, vice president of Patient Services, nurse director, Stroke Unit, nurse manager, Stroke Unit, nurse representatives, Stroke Unit, nurse representative, Rehabilitation Unit, Pharmacy, Performance Improvement, ETC physicians, ETC nurses, neurointerventionalist, radiologist, nurse manager, Cath Lab, and nurse manager, Surgical Trauma/TCU.

The Diamond Stroke Center aligns critical hospital resources for emergency stroke intervention and follow up. Structural measures of the Diamond Stroke Center include:

• Organized emergency response team/system that responds to stroke as an emergency, with immediate response time, access to specialty care (neurosurgery, neurointerventionalist, neurology, rehabilitation), access to acute pharmacological therapy, clinical trial availability, and critical care availability.
• A designated stroke unit, inpatient rehab program, multidisciplinary stroke team, clinical practice guidelines, physician orders, patient quality improvement program.
• Process measures include the implementation of secondary stroke prevention (antiplatelet therapy, anticoagulation), acute management of stroke risk factors, evaluation of patient for rehabilitation, evaluation of screening, swallowing, evaluation of nutritional status, and screening for depression.

As published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, key elements of a stroke center include an acute stroke team, a stroke unit, written care protocols, integrated EMS, rehabilitation services and community education programs. Inpatient support services include availability and interpretation of CT scans 24 hours a day, rapid laboratory testing and around-the-clock pharmacy services. Administrative support, strong leadership and continuing education are also important elements.

Abington Memorial Hospital’s Diamond Stroke Center possesses all of these key elements.