By the FHI editorial team
The Philips Future Health Index editorial team is always on the look-out for great content pieces that discuss the future of health, selecting the most interesting health-related stories for you to read.
The initiation of intravenous (IV) tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) to attempt to break up the blood clot increases recovery from stroke symptoms by up to 30%. But delay in presentation is the most common reason patients are ineligible for this life-saving treatment. It must be administered within a three-hour window and, currently, only 15% of stroke patients arrive in hospital early enough for this treatment.
If medics can go directly to the stroke patients, using connected care technology to facilitate the diagnosis scans and administer medication on the scene, there’s the potential for more stroke patients to have better outcomes.
Cleveland Clinic’s Mobile Stroke Unit aims to shorten the time between the onset of stroke-like symptoms and the delivery of these essential drugs. The stroke unit resembles a regular ambulance on the outside, but inside it contains highly specialized staff, equipment, and medication dedicated to diagnosing and treating strokes.
The Cleveland Clinic Pre-Hospital Acute Stroke Treatment (PHAST) study group analyzed the first 100 patients treated on the mobiles stroke unit compared to traditional care delivery, and showed a reduction in alarm to treatment time of 38 minutes, with an IV tPA utilization rate of 48%. These times are among the fastest published times in the world.
At the Cleveland Clinic, which treats more than 3,000 individuals on an in-patient basis every year, the mobile stoke unit has dramatically increased the proportion of stroke victims that get speedy access to tPA. And, with only 8.5% of potentially eligible patients across the US currently receiving a tPA, Cleveland could be building a model for the whole country to follow.
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