LA PLATA, Md. — University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center has earned four national recognitions from the American Heart Association for its stroke care, underscoring years of consistent performance at the 104-bed hospital that serves as a Primary Stroke Center for much of Southern Maryland.
The awards, announced this week, include the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Rural Recognition Silver Award, Target: Stroke Honor Roll and Target: Type 2 Diabetes™ Honor Roll. They mark another chapter in a run of excellence that has seen the hospital claim Gold Plus status every year since 2018.
Stroke remains the nation’s fourth-leading cause of death and a leading cause of serious long-term disability, according to the American Heart Association’s 2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Report. Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds; roughly 162,600 people died from stroke in 2023. Rapid recognition and treatment remain the difference between full recovery and lifelong impairment.
The Get With The Guidelines-Stroke program requires hospitals to follow the latest evidence-based protocols for diagnosis, treatment and post-discharge support. Hospitals that sustain high compliance over multiple years earn Gold Plus status. Participation is linked to better outcomes, including higher rates of patients discharged home, fewer readmissions and lower mortality.
Albert Zanger, president and chief administrative officer of UM Charles Regional, said the recognitions reflect daily work by physicians, nurses, emergency medical services partners and clinical teams. “University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center is committed to providing exceptional stroke care by adhering to the latest evidence-based treatment guidelines,” Zanger said. “These recognitions reflect the dedication of our physicians, nurses, EMS partners and clinical teams who work every day to ensure patients receive timely, high-quality care. We are especially proud to be recognized for both stroke care excellence and our commitment to serving rural communities across Southern Maryland.”
The Rural Recognition Silver Award is newer and more specialized. It evaluates rural and largely rural hospitals on a distinct set of acute-care measures that address real-world barriers: door-to-CT times, EMS pre-notification, door-in/door-out transfer times for patients needing higher-level care, dysphagia screening, NIH Stroke Scale documentation and timely thrombolytic therapy. Rural residents face a 30 percent higher risk of stroke death and a 40 percent higher likelihood of heart disease compared with urban counterparts, according to American Heart Association data. Extended ambulance travel times and thinner staffing make those metrics harder to hit.
Chief Medical Officer Stephen Smith, M.D., who has led clinical operations at the hospital since late 2022, acknowledged those challenges head-on. “As a hospital serving a largely rural community, we face challenges such as extended transportation times and limited staffing resources,” Smith said. “We have made it a priority to ensure those challenges never compromise the standard of care our stroke patients receive.”
UM Charles Regional has held Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems Primary Stroke Center designation since its last five-year re-designation in 2023, which runs through 2028. The designation requires a dedicated stroke team, 24/7 readiness, rapid imaging and laboratory protocols, and close coordination with EMS. The hospital maintains a 10-bed telemetry and primary stroke unit staffed by nurses certified in Advanced Cardiac Life Support and the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale. Stroke Center Director Sean Mbachu, M.D., MHS, oversees the program.
The Target: Stroke Honor Roll recognizes hospitals that consistently reduce the critical interval between patient arrival and treatment with clot-busting medication. The Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll rewards evidence-based care for the large share of stroke patients who also live with Type 2 diabetes — a condition with elevated prevalence in Charles County.
Steven Messe, M.D., volunteer chair of the American Heart Association Stroke System of Care Advisory Group and a University of Pennsylvania vascular neurologist, praised the hospital’s record. “We are proud to recognize University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center for its commitment to caring for people experiencing stroke,” Messe said. “Participation in Get With The Guidelines is associated with improved patient outcomes, including greater likelihood of being discharged home, fewer readmissions and lower mortality rates.”
Charles County’s population has grown steadily and is aging. Local health data show diabetes prevalence between 11.7 and 12.9 percent and adult obesity near 42 percent — both risk factors that elevate stroke risk. The hospital’s Food Is Medicine program and expanded neurology, endocrinology and outpatient services aim to address those upstream issues while the acute stroke team focuses on the minutes that matter most.
For patients across Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s counties, the latest awards signal that high-quality, guideline-driven stroke care is available close to home rather than requiring long transfers to urban comprehensive centers in every case. When every minute costs nearly 2 million brain cells, that proximity and readiness can change lives.
