Using mobility to get the technology to hospitals that may not be able to afford this service otherwise and saving lives at the same time...BD
One form of treatment is to administer Tissue Plasminogen Activator (tPA), a clot busting drug that can greatly reduce the disability resulting from a stroke. tPA must be administered within 3 hours of symptom onset.
Unfortunately, some hospitals lack the resources to make this determination and cannot physically transfer the patient quickly enough to enable them to receive this therapy if warranted. This is where TeleStroke comes in. Subscribing hospitals can receive acute stroke care for patients without physically transferring the patient for an exam.
"I can examine someone very interactively with the help of a physician or a nurse on the other end and I can make a determination of the stroke severity and the type of stroke by looking at the patient and at the brain image," Dr. Schwamm said.
"It's almost like being in the room."
Source: Partners TeleStroke Center : About TeleStroke
Related Article: New York Times
To have a neurologist always available, the hospital would have to hire the equivalent of two and a half neurologists, said Timothy Walsh, the hospital’s chief executive. They would be idle most of the time while costing more than a half-million dollars.
“We wouldn’t be able to handle it financially,” Mr. Walsh said. Ideally, the hospital would also use an M.R.I. machine, the most accurate brain scan for strokes. But keeping the $1.5 million machine near the emergency department “could never be justified by the business” in diagnosing strokes, Mr. Walsh said. The hospital’s only M.R.I. scanner comes in by ferry on Saturday morning and leaves Sunday night.
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