"For the third year in a row Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham has received the highest level of recognition from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association for its commitment to quality care for stroke patients. BID-Needham has just received its third AHA/ASA Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award recognizing BID-Needham's success in implementing excellent care for stroke patients according to evidence-based guidelines.

To receive the GWTG-Stroke Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award, the hospital had to maintain 85% or better treatment rates with the American Stroke Association treatment guidelines for two or more years and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with an additional subset of measures used to measure quality of care. These guidelines include therapies such as administering IV tPA for appropriate patients, antithrombotics during hospitalization as well as at discharge, DVT prophylaxis, anticoagulation for patients with atrial fibrillation, lipid lowering therapy, and smoking cessation counseling