The Mass General Stroke Service

Mass General’s Stroke Service provides comprehensive care, including diagnosis, prevention and treatment, for patients with stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases.

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What Are We Measuring?

The Get With the Guidelines® (GWTG)-Stroke initiative was launched in 2003 by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. The program measures how well participating hospitals follow guidelines for the latest evidence-based stroke care.

This measure is a composite of eight other GWTG stroke measures that include clinical interventions as well as stroke education and prescribing of medication upon discharge. A patient who received all eight interventions is said to have had “defect-free care.” The measures included are:

  1. Venous thromboembolism (VTE prophylaxis)
  2. Assessed for rehabilitation
  3. Discharged on antithrombotic therapy
  4. Anticoagulation therapy for atrial fibrillation/flutter
  5. Thrombolytic therapy
  6. Antithrombotic therapy by end of hospital day two
  7. Discharged on statin medication
  8. Stroke education

This measure reports the percentage of ischemic stroke patients that received all eight interventions and had defect-free care. This is an all-or-nothing measure, and no partial credit is given.

Defect-Free Care

Higher scores are better