Deans' stroke musings: Correlations Between Physician and Hospital Stroke Thrombectomy Volumes and Outcomes: A Nationwide Analysis

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Monday, June 7, 2021

Correlations Between Physician and Hospital Stroke Thrombectomy Volumes and Outcomes: A Nationwide Analysis

My conclusion on this is that because you don't have ANY OBJECTIVE DAMAGE DIAGNOSIS LEADING TO EXACT STROKE PROTOCOLS, you will never get the recovery results you want. And since you are measuring 'better outcomes' rather than 100% recovery you will never get to 100% recovery.

Correlations Between Physician and Hospital Stroke Thrombectomy Volumes and Outcomes: A Nationwide Analysis

Originally published7 Jun 2021https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.120.033312Stroke. ;0:STROKEAHA.120.033312

Abstract

Background and Purpose:

Despite the Joint Commission’s certification requirement of ≥15 stroke thrombectomy (ST) cases per center and proceduralist annually, the relationship between ST case volumes and outcomes is uncertain. We sought to determine whether a proceduralist or hospital volume threshold exists that is associated with better outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries.

Methods:

Retrospective cohort study using validated International Classification of Diseases,Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification codes to identify admissions with acute ischemic stroke and treatment with ST. We used de-identified, national 100% inpatient Medicare data sets from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2017 for US individuals aged ≥65 years. We calculated total procedures by proceduralist and hospital. We performed adjusted logistic regression of total cases as a predictor of inpatient mortality, good outcome (defined by dichotomized discharge disposition of inpatient rehabilitation or better), and 30-day readmission. We adjusted for sex, age, Charlson Comorbidity Index, availability of neurocritical care, teaching hospital status, socioeconomic status, 2-year stroke volume, and urban versus rural hospital location. We dichotomized case numbers incrementally to determine a volume threshold for better outcomes.

Results:

Thirteen thousand three hundred thirty-five patients were treated with ST by 2754 proceduralists at 641 hospitals. For every 10 more proceduralist cases, patients had 4% lower adjusted odds of inpatient mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 0.96 [95% CI, 0.95–0.98], P<0.0001) and 3% greater adjusted odds of good outcome (adjusted odds ratio, 1.03 [95% CI, 1.02–1.04], P<0.0001). For every 10 more hospital cases, patients had 2% lower odds of inpatient mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.98–0.99], P=0.0003) and 2% greater odds of good outcome (adjusted odds ratio, 1.02 [95% CI, 1.01–1.02], P<0.0001). With increasing volumes, there were higher odds of better outcomes.

Conclusions:

Nationally, higher proceduralist and hospital ST case volumes were associated with reduced inpatient mortality and better outcome. These data support volume requirements in guidelines for ST training and certification.