William Newton Hospital awarded for work to eliminate rural health disparities

Jan 08, 2024

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People who live in rural communities live an average of three years fewer than urban counterparts and face a 30% increased risk for stroke mortality — a gap that has grown over the past two decades. William Newton Hospital is committed to changing that.

For efforts to improve stroke care and eliminate rural health disparities, William Newton Hospital has received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® - Stroke Rural Recognition Bronze award.

The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, recognizes that people in rural areas face a unique set of challenges to accessing health care and that rural hospitals must work with varied patient care dynamics. For that reason, all rural hospitals participating in Get with The Guidelines® - Stroke are eligible to receive award recognition focused on a unique set of performance metrics.

“We are proud that our team at William Newton Hospital is being recognized for the important work we do every day to improve the lives of people in South Central Kansas who are affected by stroke, giving them the best possible chance of recovery and survival,” said Melanie Burnett, MSN, RN, William Newton Hospital Clinical Educator. “Rural communities deserve high quality stroke care. I'm proud of our team for their commitment to stroke care excellence and this achievement.”

The award recognizes hospitals for their efforts toward acute stroke care excellence demonstrated by composite score compliance to guideline-directed care for intravenous thrombolytic therapy, timely hospital inter-facility transfer, dysphagia screening, symptom timeline and deficit assessment documentation, emergency medical services communication, brain imaging and stroke expert consultation.

“Patients and health care professionals in South Central Kansas face unique health care challenges and opportunities,” said Karen E. Joynt Maddox, M.D., MPH, volunteer expert for the American Heart Association, co-author on “Call to Action: Rural Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association” and co-director of the Center for Health Economics and Policy at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “William Newton Hospital has furthered this important work to improve care for all Americans, regardless of where they live.”

Learn more at heart.org/ruralrecognition.