Experts Call for Care Coordination Solutions for LVO Stroke Treatment

Stroke care protocols and best practices are rapidly changing thanks to recent research that demonstrates the efficacy of intra-arterial interventional treatments over tPA in large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke patients. 

And as these new techniques become the standard of care, they also necessitate a change in the way care teams approach stroke treatment beyond the technique itself:  there is an "urgent need for integrated regionalized stroke care networks," according to a recent article siting experts Louis Caplan, MD, Anthony Furlan, MD, and Werner Hacke, MD, PhD.

To meet this aim, updates will be needed in the way stroke care is delivered at every stage of treatment. "The thrombectomy studies have created an ethical and practical mandate to upgrade stroke care," the physicians stated in a recent JAMA Neurology article. "This mandate will require changes in systems of stroke care delivery at all levels of care."

The three experts expressed the need for a system connecting EMS first responders to the stroke teams at nearby hospitals, in efforts to help EMS quickly figure out the best place to take their stroke patients, with the ideal location being a comprehensive stroke center. In cases where a comprehensive stroke center is too far away, the nearest primary stroke center should be the backup and, according to the experts, should be "linked ... by telemedicine."

These sentiments were expanded on in an article titled "LVO stroke: How to improve EMS response and patient survival," published last week on EMS1.com. In the post, the authors state that "A reliable method of EMS pre-notification is crucial to give the receiving facility opportunity to activate a stroke response. [However], this notification appears inconsistent and does not occur in about 25 percent of EMS stroke cases."

Pulsara syncs up all members of the care team, from EMS to definitive treatment, and allows any and all users to instantly and securely send messages, images, and patient status updates to any other member of the care team. By instantly connecting EMS to all nearby hospitals, as well as connecting hospitals to one another, Pulsara allows users to establish regional systems of care to ensure that every patient gets the right resources in the right amount of time. 

For more about how Pulsara can fix your LVO problem, check out our stroke page.