Health Care Quality Assessment

A hospital designated as a Primary Stroke Center shall provide the following patient care and support services:

• An acute stroke team.
• Board certified neurologists and radiologists.
• Neurology and emergency department personnel trained in the diagnosis and treatment of acute stroke.
• Neuro-imaging services capability available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Acute care rehabilitation services.
• Transfer arrangements with a Comprehensive Stroke Center in New Jersey that facilitate the transfer of patients with complex strokes to a Comprehensive Stroke Center for care when clinically warranted.
• Stroke database or registry capable of tracking outcomes for quality improvement and evaluation.
• Demonstrate a continuing commitment to ongoing education to the general public about stroke.

Comprehensive Stroke Centers will provide the same basic services provided by Primary Stroke Centers. In addition, they provide specialized care for patients who experience complex strokes including the following:

• Neurosurgical team capable of assessing and treating complex stroke and stroke-like syndromes.
• Neuro-imaging services with digital subtraction angiography and a special procedures suite equipped for neuro-interventional procedures that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Comprehensive rehabilitation services either on site or by transfer agreement with another health care facility.
• Develop policies regarding ongoing evaluation and quality improvement activities by using data maintained by the center.

• More than 795,00 people in the United States experience a new or recurrent stroke each year. Approximately 610,000 are first attacks and 180 are recurrent attacks (AHA Circulation. 2017)
• In New Jersey stroke remains the fourth leading cause of death and the fifth leading cause of death in United states, killing 140,000 Americans each year. (MMWR 2017:66)
• Stroke death rates in the US declined 38% from 2000 – 2015 among adults aged ≥35 years (MMWR 2017)
• In 2015, 139,367 people (57,750 males and 81,617 females) died due to stroke in the United States (MMWR 2017)

• According to the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, 3.0% (7,484,557) Americans and 2.8% (194,872) New Jerseyans age 18 or older had a history of stroke. (https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/brfssprevalence/).
• In 2017, a total of 22,657 patients were reported to the New Jersey Acute Stroke Registry (NJASR), out of these 13,696 were ischemic stroke, 3,146 were hemorrhagic stroke and 5,075 were transient ischemic attack (TIA).
• In 2017, stroke was the fourth leading cause of death in New Jersey.