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Stroke Quality Improvement Awards 2024
2024 Award Categories
Awards are given to hospital stroke programs in Minnesota that implemented the best quality improvement initiatives in the following categories:
- Continuous Impact: This is an award for starting an initiative that created a meaningful and long-term improvement in quality of stroke care.
- Operational Excellence: This is an award for initiative that focused on collaboration between different programs to improve quality of stroke care.
- Outstanding Achievement: This is an award for initiative that led to evidence-based positive change in quality of stroke care.
Meet this year's six winners.
2024 Continuous Impact Award Recipients
Essentia Health St. Joseph's Medical Center
Primary Stroke Center
Brainerd, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Improve individualized risk factor patient education for stroke patients.
- Action Plan: Provide nurse education in a variety of ways, such as e-learning, posterboards, and an escape room to increase the delivery of patient-centered risk factor stroke education.
- Results: Improvements were seen in compliance of stroke risk factor education and enhanced nursing education provided was well received by staff.
Award Qualifications
Essentia Health St. Joseph’s Medical Center received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Creative and engaging methods used to improve retention and application of nurse education.
- A well-rounded approach to quality improvement initiative with promising long-term benefits.
Murray County Medical Center
Acute Stroke Ready Hospital
Slayton, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Increase in completion of bedside swallow screens.
- Action Plan: Review current procedures, update them to make it simpler and easier for nursing to follow, then educate staff.
- Results: Bedside swallow screens were performed on 100% of patients during two quarters of the project.
Award Qualifications
Murray County Medical Center received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Use of multiple methods to investigate and understand the issue.
- Ensured sustainability of change by engaging with clinical leadership at hospital and revising policies.
2024 Operational Excellence Award Recipients
Allina Health EMS and United Hospital
Comprehensive Stroke Center
St. Paul, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Implement a pre-hospital stroke screening tool throughout all Allina Health Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to improve the early detection and care of large vessel occlusion (LVO) strokes.
- Action Plan: Train all Allina Health EMS on the importance of the LVO screening tool. Monitor the training completion rate, compliance to the new protocol, and usage of the stroke scale.
- Results: After implementation, usage of the pre-hospital stroke LVO assessment tool documentation rose from 6% to 95%.
Award Qualifications
Allina Health EMS and United Hospital received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Great partnerships between EMS and hospital stroke program to improve recognition of a possible LVO stroke before patient arrives hospital.
- A strong commitment to improvement by monitoring uptake of screening tool and adjusting when initial usage rates were low.
Mayo Clinic Rochester
Comprehensive Stroke Center
Rochester, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Decrease door to imaging times to improve door to treatment times.
- Action Plan: Review patient flow through the emergency department to identify process delays and shift key urgent items to improve time goals.
- Results: Increased the number of patients receiving initial imaging within 20 minutes of hospital arrival.
Award Qualifications
Mayo Clinic Rochester received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Striving to improve operations to deliver the best care safely and effectively.
- Involving and challenging multiple departments to work together towards a new, even faster time goal.
2024 Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients
Essentia Health Deer River
Acute Stroke Ready Hospital
Deer River, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Increase nursing swallow screen compliance before giving anything by mouth for patients being assessed for stroke.
- Action Plan: Increased rates of completion of swallow screens and improved compliance of giving nothing by mouth until the screening.
- Results: Increased the number of patients receiving initial imaging within 20 minutes of hospital arrival.
Award Qualifications
Essentia Health Deer River received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Creative use of physical reminders to screen using the checklist and cups.
- Dedication to improve identification of a potentially serious complication of stroke.
Pipestone County Medical Center
Acute Stroke Ready Hospital
Pipestone, Minnesota
- Opportunity for Improvement: Change in imaging protocol to improve door to treatment times.
- Action Plan: Streamline key stroke care activation, labs, and imaging steps in the stroke code process.
- Results: Stroke code improvements reduced delays in stroke team activation, door to imaging, and door to treatment.
Award Qualifications
Pipestone County Medical Center received this award for their accomplishments in:
- Great use of data to track and monitor performance.
- Ability to implement clinical change in care successfully and see improvements in multiple areas.
Last Updated: 11/03/2025