CAMDEN, NJ--Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines® – Stroke Silver Performance Achievement Award in recognition of the hospital's use of evidence-based protocols to provide patients with the best possible care.

Get With The Guidelines (GTWG) is a quality-improvement program that helps ensure hospitals' treatment of coronary artery disease, heart failure and stroke is aligned with the most current scientific guidelines and evidence-based therapies. The Silver Performance Award is conferred on hospitals that have achieved 12 consecutive months of 85 percent adherence to GTWG performance measures.

"Therapies and treatments recommended by the Get With The Guidelines program help improve patient outcomes, including reduced incidences of recurring events, complications and morbidity," said Mark Bateman, chief executive officer of Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center. "We continue to strive for excellence, and this award is a validation of our efforts."

The Stroke Program at Lourdes is nationally recognized and has received a five-star rating for six consecutive years from HealthGrades®, a leading independent quality-rating organization. In addition, the program received Healthgrades' 2008 Stroke Care Excellence Award and has been designated by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services as a Primary Stroke Center.

Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, a 410-bed regional referral center in Camden, New Jersey, is an affiliate of Lourdes Health System, which includes Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County in Willingboro. Lourdes Health System is sponsored by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, NY, and is a member of Catholic Health East, a health system with 34 hospitals in 11 eastern states. Specialty clinical services at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center include the New Jersey Heart Institute at Lourdes, the largest provider of cardiac services in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia; the Regional Perinatal Center for high-risk mothers and infants; the Lourdes Stroke Center; the Southern New Jersey Dialysis Center; the Center for Organ Transplantation; the Lourdes Regional Rehabilitation Center; the Lourdes Center for Advanced Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine; bariatric (weight-loss) surgery; and robot-assisted surgery. More information is available at www.lourdesnet.org and at www.che.org.

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