ER staff with Gold award
Marshall Browning Hospital awarded Gold for efforts to improve rural stroke care
The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Rural Recognition Gold award recognizes efforts to address the unique health needs of rural communities.
DU QUOIN, IL, August 1, 2025 – For efforts to optimize stroke care and eliminate rural health care outcome disparities, Marshall Browning Hospital has received the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® - Stroke Rural Recognition Gold award.
The American Heart Association, the world’s leading nonprofit organization focused on heart and brain health for all, recognizes the importance of health care services provided to people living in rural areas by rural hospitals that play a vital role in the initiation of timely, evidence-based care. For that reason, all rural hospitals participating in Get With The Guidelines - Stroke are eligible to receive award recognition based on a unique methodology focused on early acute stroke performance metrics.
“This recognition highlights our team’s commitment to delivering timely, evidence-based stroke care in a rural setting,” said Stephanie Hall, Chief Nursing Officer and Director of Clinical Services. “It showcases the collaboration across departments that enables us to provide the highest quality care to our community. In previous years, we have received Silver and Bronze awards. I am incredibly proud of the effort our team has put into becoming the hospital of choice for the people and community we serve by providing exceptional patient care and outstanding service. We are thrilled to receive the Gold award for 2025. Thank you to my team for your hard work and dedication, and thank you to our community for trusting us with your care.”
The award recognizes hospitals for their efforts toward acute stroke care excellence demonstrated by composite score compliance with 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 southern Illinois face unique health care challenges and opportunities,” said Karen E. Joynt Maddox, M.D., MPH, co-author on the American Heart Association’s presidential advisory on rural health. “Marshall Browning Hospital has furthered this important work to improve care for all Americans, regardless of where they live.”
About Get With The Guidelines®
Get With The Guidelines® is the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s hospital-based quality improvement program that provides hospitals with the latest research-based guidelines. Developed with the goal of saving lives and hastening recovery, Get With The Guidelines has touched the lives of more than 14 million patients since 2001. For more information, visit heart.org.