Researchers find transport time to specialized center sometimes longer than two hours
THURSDAY, Aug. 6, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Stroke victims still aren’t getting treated soon enough, a new study suggests. The findings were presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery, held from July 27 to 30 in San Francisco.
Michael Froehler, M.D., and Kiersten Espaillat, D.N.P., of the Cerebrovascular Program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., recorded the amount of time it took to transfer 70 patients from hospitals that were not equipped to handle all levels of stroke to major stroke centers.
Over the course of one year, the researchers found transfer times ranged between 46 and 133 minutes. Those times were longer than it would have taken to drive the distance between the facilities, the researchers noted.
Stroke is the number one cause of disability and the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, the researchers said. Stroke cost about $54 billion in health care expenses and lost productivity in 2010 alone. Disability-related health care expenses resulting from strokes also cost $74 billion each year, they noted.
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