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Review
. 2017 May 29;2(2):94-105.
doi: 10.1136/svn-2017-000092. eCollection 2017 Jun.

The American Heart Association's Get With the Guidelines (GWTG)-Stroke development and impact on stroke care

Cora H Ormseth  1 , Kevin N Sheth  1 , Jeffrey L Saver  2 , Gregg C Fonarow  3 , Lee H Schwamm  4
Affiliations
Review

The American Heart Association's Get With the Guidelines (GWTG)-Stroke development and impact on stroke care

Cora H Ormseth et al. Stroke Vasc Neurol. .

Abstract

The American Heart Association's Get With the Guidelines (GWTG)-Stroke programme has changed stroke care delivery in the USA since its establishment in 2003. GWTG is a voluntary registry and continuous quality improvement initiative that collects data on patient characteristics, hospital adherence to guidelines and inpatient outcomes. Implementation of the programme saw increased provision of evidence-based care and improved patient outcomes. This review will describe the development of the programme and discuss the impact on stroke outcomes and transformation of stroke care delivery that followed its implementation.

Keywords: Stroke.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
GWTG quality improvement framework. Foundation of the GWTG quality improvement programme. Adapted from Current Treatment Options in Cardiovascular Medicine. 2005;7:253–258. GWTG, Get With the Guidelines; WS, workshop.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Enrolment in GWTG-Stroke from 2003 to 2016. Yearly and cumulative enrolment in GWTG-Stroke from 2003 to 2016. Used with permission from the American Heart Association. GWTG, Get With the Guidelines.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Impact of the Target: Stroke quality improvement initiative. Time trend in the proportion of patients with door-to-needle times for tPA ≤60 min during the preintervention and postintervention periods of Target: Stroke. Reproduced with permission from JAMA. 2014; 311(16):1632–1640. Copyright ©2014 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. tPA, tissue plasminogen activator.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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