Telestroke Conference 2018 Awards

By Ben Boulden

This year there were seven categories of awards to present.

The Door to Call Time Award: This award is given to the hospital with the fastest Door to Call Time.

The Door to Needle Award: This award goes to the hospital with the fastest Door to Needle Time.

The Winner is: On September 5, 2017 with a DTC time of 7 minutes and DTN time of 29 minutes goes to Arkansas Methodist – Paragould.

The Site Excellence Award goes to sites that have met and exceeded the contract deliverables, multiple mocks each month, 100 percent all-sites attendance, did great community outreach, met deadlines for data submission and went above and beyond the expectations of an AR SAVES site.

This year we have three sites nominated by their outreach nurse for this award. They are:

  1. Conway Regional Health System – Conway. NF Amanda Irby, Back up Meg Prince
  2. Great River Medical Center – Blytheville. NF Carnell Laden, Back up Lisa Smith
  3. North Arkansas Regional Medical Center – Harrison. Back up Lauren Elliot, NF JR Looper

The Honorable Mention Award is presented to sites that have met all the basic requirements of an AR SAVES site and have made improvements with many of their internal processes, training and outreach during the past year. This year we have six qualifying sites:

  1. National Park Medical Center – Hot Springs
  2. Drew Memorial Hospital – Monticello
  3. Ashley County Medical Center – Crossett
  4. Saint Mary’s Regional Health System – Russellville
  5. Ozark Health Medical Center – Clinton
  6. Baxter Regional Medical Center – Mountain Home

A new award starting this year, and that will continue to be awarded in the future, is the EMS Certificate of Excellence Award. These recipients were nominated by AR SAVES sites that they serve. This award is presented to EMS agencies that have attended stroke training offered by AR SAVES, appointed liaisons to work with the nurse facilitator at the sites in regards to training, drills,  patient care, community outreach and the PI/QA process at the hospital.

For this inaugural award presentation, there were six EMS agencies nominated that met these criteria. They are as follows:

  1. North Star EMS – Searcy AND:
  2. North Star EMS – Heber Springs
  3. Southeast EMS (SEEMS) – Drew County
  4. Dewitt EMS – Dewitt
  5. Pafford EMS – Helena
  6. MEMS – Faulkner County

Two additional new awards were given this year. Both of these awards are nominated by their respective AR SAVES sites. The first one is the Physician Excellence Award. This award represents the recipient’s contributions through the use of modern technology and best practices of stroke care in Arkansas. Considerations were M.D. involvement with the program, using AR SAVES recommendations and protocols, supports and engaging in the training of hospital staff and peers, attending meetings, EMS involvement and is an advocate of the program to Hospital Administration.

This year’s Physician Excellence Award went to Martin Carey, M.D., at Unity Health – Searcy. Martin is working today so could Jasper or another  representative from Unity Health Searcy please come forward.

The second of these new awards is the Physician Champion Award. This physician met all the requirements of the Physician Excellence Award that I listed but This physician went above and beyond these to help the potential stroke patients in his community. This Physician actually contacted AR SAVES about starting an AR SAVES program at his hospital and was “persistent” according to the nurse facilitator that nominated him, that his hospital be a stroke ready hospital.

Due to his commitment and persistence it gives us great honor to present the Physician Champion award to: Dr. Robin Goodman at River Valley Medical Center – Dardanelle. Dr. Goodman is also working today. Stephanie or another representative for River Valley please come forward.