For the first time, U.S. News & World Report has added a treatment-based measure from the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines® - Stroke program to its nationwide stroke hospital ratings. Inclusion of this measure — reporting on the timing in which clot-dissolving medication is given to a person experiencing a stroke — reinforces the impact of data transparency and highlights the importance of timely, lifesaving treatment.
U.S. News has long factored in hospitals' public reporting status into its rankings. A public transparency measure, based on registry participation, accounts for 2.5% of the publication's Best Regional Hospitals rankings. This year, an additional 2.5% of each hospital's stroke score will be based on the speed at which eligible patients receive IV thrombolytics, a clot-dissolving medication used to treat ischemic stroke. This timely administration is a critical driver of patient outcomes.[1]
Data from the Association's Get With The Guidelines - Stroke registry powers this new measure. Hospitals publicly reporting an 85% or higher rate of IV thrombolytic administration within 60 minutes of arrival receive full credit. Hospitals with lower rates receive partial credit, and those that do not report publicly receive no credit for this or the transparency measure.
"One of the biggest differentiating advantages of our data is that we capture reasons for non-treatment, which most electronic health records and other data sources lack. These data are critical in establishing the credibility of our quality measurement reporting systems," said Lee Schwamm, M.D., FAHA, American Heart Association volunteer who originally helped to establish the Get With The Guidelines - Stroke program. Schwamm is also senior vice president and chief digital health officer at Yale New Haven Health System, and associate dean of digital strategy and transformation and professor of neurology, biomedical informatics and data sciences at Yale School of Medicine. "We applaud U.S. News & World Report for including the time-to-thrombolytics measure — it speaks to the real-time impact of the Get With The Guidelines program and the Association's role in improving health outcomes through accelerating the translation of evidence into practice in cardiovascular and stroke care."
"This new ranking component helps validate the Association's registry as a gold-standard resource and signals to hospitals the continued importance of stroke systems of care," said Gregg Fonarow, M.D., FAHA, American Heart Association volunteer and member of the Association's Stroke Systems of Care Advisory Group. Fonarow is also director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center, co-director of the Preventative Cardiology Program and the Eliot Corday Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine and Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Public reporting plays a vital role in advancing both hospital performance and patient empowerment. For hospitals, it fosters a team-based approach to accountability, showcases efforts to implement quality improvement initiatives, and helps identify areas needing attention. It also opens the door to inclusion in national hospital rankings, further incentivizing high-quality care. For individuals, public reporting offers a transparent snapshot of hospital performance, increasing awareness of key care measures and supporting more informed decision-making when choosing where to receive treatment. Together, these benefits drive a culture of continuous improvement and trust in health care.
Learn more about the American Heart Association's quality improvement initiatives at heart.org/quality.
