Orlando Health South Lake Hospital Certified as Advanced Primary Stroke Center

Clermont, FL (May 23, 2020) – Orlando Health South Lake Hospital has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval^® for Advanced Primary Stroke Center Accreditation. The designation recognizes hospitals with specific abilities to receive and treat the most complex stroke cases.

The certification process requires hospitals to adopt a set of standardized performance measures designed to elevate patient care at every point of the stroke care continuum. Closing the window of time it takes for a stroke patient to receive care is critical in order to minimize brain damage and other complications. Starting in 2018, Orlando Health South Lake began analyzing the facility’s data from every department to determine how long the treatment process took once a stroke patient was identified.

“When it comes to stroke care and treatment, time is brain,” said Bonnie Onofre, RN, Orlando Health South Lake chief nursing officer. “One of our philosophies as a hospital system is that patients should be able to receive care and treatment in their community. This accreditation demonstrates that we have processes in place to allow for earlier interventions for stroke patients which leads to better care and outcomes.”

In addition to reviewing internal data, Orlando Health South Lake worked with local EMS to streamline processes, ensuring seamless patient care from the community to the emergency department. Once someone begins to display symptoms of a stroke, a stroke alert is called which triggers the hospital’s treatment process. On average, the hospital sees about 75 stroke alerts each month with about 30 of them resulting in actual stroke patients. In 2019, the facility saw more than 700 stroke alerts which included walk-in patients, patients who were already admitted and those brought in by EMS. 

Accreditation by the Join Commission is one of the highest levels of certification that a hospital can receive. To date, Orlando Health South Lake is the second hospital in the Orlando Health system to be certified as an Advanced Primary Stroke Center. 

For more information, please visit The Joint Commission website. 

About Orlando Health

Orlando Health is a not-for-profit healthcare organization with $5.6 billion of assets under management. The system spans nine Florida counties with nearly 450 locations that include 13 wholly-owned or affiliated hospitals and emergency departments; rehabilitation services, cancer centers, heart institutes, imaging and laboratory services, wound care centers, more than 300 physician offices for adults and pediatrics, and 11 urgent care centers in partnership with CareSpot Urgent Care. In FY18, Orlando Health served approximately 167,000 inpatients, more than 2.7 million outpatients, and more than 20,000 international patients. The organization is home to the area’s only Level One Trauma Centers for adults and pediatrics, and is a statutory teaching hospital system that offers both specialty and community hospitals. More than 3,100 physicians have privileges across the system, which is also one of the area’s largest employers with nearly 20,500 employees. Additionally, Orlando Health provides more than $620 million in total value to the community in the form of charity care, community benefit programs and services, community building activities and more. Additional information can be found at www.orlandohealth.com.