Abstract T P262: Door to Needle Times Reduced With Enhanced Brain Attack Activation

These people have absolutely no idea what the hell they are doing. Its so f*cking simple you stop the need for expensive time-consuming scans and the neurologist needed to read the scan. You idiots need to be reading research papers, there are already 17 possible ways to objectively diagnose a stroke.  With that you could deliver ineffective tPA in 5 minutes.
The damned goal is wrong, door-to-needle is not the goal, Saving neurons is the goal.
 GAHHHH!!! The Stupidity.
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/45/Suppl_1/ATP262.short

1. Charles Barbera;
2. Timothy Marks;
3. Anthony Martin;
4. Kristen Sandel;
5. Mary Bilotta

+ Author Affiliations

1. Reading Health System, West Reading, PA

Abstract

Background: Current guidelines for care of the acute stroke patient demonstrate that the benefits of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) are time dependent and recommend it be given within 60 minutes from arrival to the Emergency Department (ED).

Hypothesis: Door to tPA times would be reduced by using a multidisciplinary approach to acute stroke patients and by transporting them directly to the CT scanner.

Methods: The community hospital restructured its Brain Attack process after creating a Door to Needle team to evaluate and expedite the care of the acute stroke patient. This multidisciplinary team was assembled in order to plan, implement, and study the new Brain Attack alert process. The team is activated via a touchscreen in the ED, many times prior to patient arrival. Stable patients who do not require airway intervention are taken directly to a newly renovated CT scan anteroom for initial assessment, point of care anticoagulation testing, and initial NIH stroke scale. In addition, education concerning the new process, as well as acute stroke care in general was presented to 35 local EMS services by emergency physicians and an EMS outreach coordinator.

Results: In July of 2012, 54 Brain Attacks were evaluated with a median door to CT time of 41 minutes and door to CT interpretation time of 51 minutes. The new Brain Attack process was implemented on December 3, 2012. During the first month of the new process, 51 Brain Attacks were evaluated with median door to CT time of 28 minutes and door to CT interpretation time of 38 minutes. This represents a decrease in time to CT acquisition and interpretation of 13 minutes. tPA was given to 4 patients in July 2012 with only one patient (25%) receiving the medication in <60 minutes. In December, 4 patients received tPA, 3 (75%) within the 60 minute window.

Conclusions: Patients who received tPA were treated more expeditiously after implementation of the restructured activation process. 75% of tPA patients were treated within the 60 minute timeframe as recommended by current guidelines. EMS also provided extremely positive feedback concerning the education and restructured Brain Attack activation.