Enhancements to stroke care program lead to "Elite" recognition at Mountain hospitals

The Mountain Division of HCA Healthcare, with care sites in Alaska, Idaho and Utah, announced that six of its hospitals earned 2025 Get With the Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus recognition for consistent adherence to the latest research-driven guidelines and measurement for stroke care. The recognition comes from the American Heart Association (AHA).

“This recognition reflects the significant enhancements we’ve made to our stroke care program across Alaska, Idaho and Utah,” said Dr. Filip Roos, chief medical officer of the Mountain Division. “By adhering to the AHA’s guidelines, we improve our patients’ chances of a full and speedy recovery. That’s why we’ve been so focused on embracing care technology and new treatments to transform stroke care in our network.”

Utah’s St. Mark’s Hospital, Ogden Regional Medical Center, Lakeview Hospital and Timpanogos Regional Hospital received the AHA recognition, along with Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center (EIRMC) in Idaho Falls and Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage. All six facilities received Stroke Gold Plus recognition, meaning that they have reached the applicable targets for at least two consecutive calendar years.

Lakeview Hospital received Target: Stroke Elite recognition for achieving a door-to-needle time of 60 minutes or less for 85% of their applicable patients.

St. Mark’s Hospital, Ogden Regional Medical Center, Timpanogos Regional Hospital, Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center and Alaska Regional Hospital received Target: Stroke Elite Plus recognition with 75% of patients having a door-to-needle time of 45 minutes or less, and 50% of patients having a door-to-needle time of 30 minutes or less.

Door-to-needle refers to the time between a stroke patient’s arrival at the emergency room and the administration of thrombolytic (clot-busting) medication. This metric is crucial because every minute counts – research shows that for every minute a stroke goes untreated, up to 1.9 million neurons may be lost.

“When we can deliver clot-busting treatments to patients early in their stroke emergency,” Roos added, “we drastically improve the odds of a favorable outcome. That’s why our clinicians and care team members have been committed to implementing a number of changes we’ve made to enhance our care and benefit patients.”

Roos cited several specific enhancements to the Mountain Division’s stroke program that led to improvements in care delivery:

• The division’s hospitals were the first in their respective states to begin treating ischemic stroke patients with a newer version of thrombolytic which can be administered in seconds.
• In 2022, the division launched a “Direct Beam-In” program, leveraging telehealth technology to frontload the neurologist’s assessment in coordination with EMS teams, ER providers and clinical staff. This enables care teams to establish a coordinated plan for thrombolytic administration or secondary treatment modalities for the patient.
• Starting in 2022, all Mountain Division hospitals and freestanding emergency rooms transitioned to an alternative thrombolytic drug that takes just seconds to administer. Their hospitals were the first in Utah and Idaho to adopt this treatment, and among the first in Alaska.
• The division also introduced a multidisciplinary team that reviews every thrombolytic administration to help identify best practices and areas for improvement.

In addition to the Stroke Elite Plus recognition, St. Mark’s, Ogden Regional, EIRMC and Alaska Regional also achieved the targets for Advanced Therapy, which is based on door-to-device times for direct and transferred patients. Those four hospitals also received recognition for meeting evidence-based standards in care for patients with Type 2 Diabetes when hospitalized for CVD or Stroke.

In all, the Mountain Division has 11 hospitals and more than 100 total sites of care. It is one of 15 divisions of HCA Healthcare, one of the nation’s leading providers of health services. Division leaders say the knowledge, data and best practices from HCA Healthcare’s 43 million annual patient interactions help to continually enhance the care delivered by local teams in Alaska, Idaho and Utah.

The methodology for the AHA’s Get With the Guidelines program.