UH neurologists win top regional awards from American Heart Association

Drs. Matthew Koenig and Kazuma Nakagawa

University of Hawaiʻi medical professors Matthew Koenig and Kazuma Nakagawa, MDs, have received awards from the American Heart Association’s Western States Affiliate, selected from volunteers across a 10-state region for their outstanding work.  

Koenig is the recipient of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Quality and Systems Improvement Award, one of the top honors given to volunteers in the Western States Affiliate, which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaiʻi, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. 

The chair of the Hawaiʻi Stroke Coalition was honored for his outstanding contributions to improving the quality of patient care throughout state. Through his leadership, stroke acute care hospitals through Hawaiʻi are assessing the records of over 30,000 stroke patients to identify opportunities to improve the care provided to them. He has encouraged Hawaiʻi’s acute stroke care hospitals and EMS agencies to work together to identify ways to reduce the time to treatment, and improve the quality of care provided to stroke patients following medically recognized best practices.

Nakagawa, who received the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Physician Volunteer of the Year Award, was honored for outstanding contributions in both the medical and research fields. Combining his medical practice with his research interests, Nakagawa is investigating racial-ethnic disparities in risk factors and outcomes in Hawaiʻi stroke patients, particularly among Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders who are having strokes 10 years younger than other racial-ethnic groups.

The associate professor of medicine, Division of Neurology, is also director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center at The Queen's Medical Center.  At Queen's, he practices as a neurointensivist and stroke neurologist, caring for critically ill patients with severe neurological conditions, including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke.

The medical professors were honored at the AHA’s annual volunteer awards dinner in Sacramento, Calfiornia, on June 6, 2017.

For more information, visit: http://jabsom.hawaii.edu/news-media/uh-med-now/