Walid Kamsheh, MD, Takes Lead of UM SRH Primary Stroke Center


Walid Kamsheh, MD

Walid Kamsheh, MD has assumed the position of medical director of the Primary Stroke Center at UM Shore Medical Center at Easton. The announcement of Dr. Kamsheh’s appointment follows the departure of Terry P. Detrick, MD,  the Center’s medical director.
Dr. Kamsheh first joined the Medical Staff in 1989 and practices neurology and sleep medicine. He has been an innovator in meeting the neurological care needs of patients in the five county region served by UM SRH.
“I am very excited to lead the continued outstanding care and treatment offered in our Primary Stroke Center,” Dr. Kamsheh says. “In the Center’s recent recognition from the American Stroke Association, we learned that in terms of meeting and exceeding the benchmarks for the Association’s Gold Plus designation and its Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus, we are way ahead of stroke centers in many large, metropolitan hospitals. Our community is very fortunate that Shore Regional Health’s Stroke Center has an outstanding team of physicians, nurses, therapists and techs who achieved this level of excellence and who work so well with our hospitalists and our ED physicians and staff,.”
According to the ASA, hospitals earning the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award have reached an aggressive goal of treating patients with 85 percent or higher adherence to all “Get With The Guidelines-Stroke” achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and have achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight “Get With The Guidelines-Stroke” quality measures. Those achieving Target Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus have demonstrated success in meeting quality measures to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment with the drug, Alteplase.
Ken Kozel, Diane Walbridge, Amanda Davani (director, Quality and Systems Improvement, MD & DC AHA/ASA),  Ruth Ann Jones, Jennifer Miles, Terry Detrich, MD, Nicole Leonard and Walid Kamsheh, MD, are shown at the Primary Stroke Center’s celebration of achieving Gold Plus designation from the ASA. The event was held at UM Shore Medical Center at Easton on August 31, 2017.

In addition to maintaining the ASA’s Gold Plus designation, Kamsheh hopes to provide more community education about the risks and signs of stroke, and the life-saving services and recovery resources offered by the Stroke Center. “We have an older population here on the Shore, and stroke risks increase with age, so it is very important that we get information out as widely as possible,” Dr. Kamsheh notes.
This graph shows how UM Shore Regional Health’s Primary Stroke Center has exceeded the targets required for Gold Plus Designation by the American Stroke Association (ASA). The vertical bars represent the Primary Stroke Center’s score (in terms of percentage of patients) on the 13 individual measures considered by the ASA, and the red horizontal bars represent the minimum required percentage that must be achieved for Gold Plus designation.