JOINT COMMISSION'S CORE MEASURE ON STROKE 3
Literature Review
Prevalence of Stroke
Stroke is a common ailment that most hospitals deal with on a daily basis. US hospitals
register more than 795000 stroke cases annually, which accounts for up to 889000
hospitalizations (Poisson et al. 2011). Different organizations like the Joint Commission, Centers
for Disease Control and others have collaboratively come up with stroke core measures to put
forward quality metrics for providing care to patients. Giuseppe and Amantea (2014) state that
there are many patients with stroke in remote areas, but do not receive the same type of care as in
urban stroke centers. They show the importance of obligatory procedures for all stroke centers in
improving the care given to stroke patients (Giuseppe et al. 2014). Therefore, this underlines the
essence of following quality care guidelines among all medical centers in the quest of improving
the quality of life for stroke patients.
Compliance with Guidelines
The core measures by the Joint Commission serve as a national standard practice and
performance measurement system that assesses the healthcare delivery for stroke. The Joint
Commission sets hospital-based measures which all health and stroke centers must adhere to for
quality care provision. Masica et al. (2009) reveal that some hospitals do not follow the
guidelines as required, which impairs the dispensation of adequate care to stroke patients. In a
similar view, findings reveal that despite the awareness of core measures, care provider
limitations like lack of tools and training in applying the metrics exist (Panezai et al. 2013). With
this, the effect of the core measures is still limited, especially in remote stroke health centers.
Thus, compliance with the guidelines still faces challenges, although, for those who apply them,
the results are positive.