EDMONDS — South Snohomish County residents facing a stroke will now benefit from a recently formed partnership between the Swedish Neuroscience Institute Acute TeleStroke Program and Stevens Hospital in Edmonds.
The partnership will bolster Stevens Hospital’s stroke support services through around-the-clock access to SNI’s stroke team experts based at the Swedish/Cherry Hill Campus in Seattle. With the help of a video-conferencing network, members of SNI’s Stroke Program are able to perform “virtual” bedside neurological evaluations to examine patients, review brain images and quickly select the best acute stroke treatments in collaboration with Stevens emergency physicians.
Although this partnership is new, the concept of a certified and comprehensive stroke center providing extra support to partner ERs is not.
“We are really excited about the opportunity to begin helping the ER team at Stevens Hospital provide an enhanced level of stroke care services to people who live and work in this region,” said SNI Stroke Program Medical Director Dr. William Likosky.
When a stroke patient arrives in the ER at Stevens, the Swedish stroke team in Seattle is paged. Members of the team — a stroke team physician and stroke nurse practitioner or physician assistant — can log in on their home or office computers to complete a TeleStroke examination and determine if a patient might qualify for rescue therapies in an attempt to “stop” the stroke.
The Swedish Acute TeleStroke Program, started in 2007, is part of an integrated effort to improve stroke diagnosis and treatment throughout Washington state. It currently provides the service to seven hospitals throughout the region.
“The TeleStroke Program is one of several changes we’ve recently made at the Stevens ER to enhance the level of emergency medical services we provide to the communities we serve,” said Nancy Wood, a registered nurse and vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at Stevens.
Stroke is the third largest cause of death and a leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States. According to the American Stroke Association, about 800,000 Americans suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year. On average a stroke occurs every 40 seconds, and about every four minutes someone dies of stroke.
Washington state has one of the higher rates of stroke death in the country. Over the past decade stroke care has improved through newer diagnostic tests to help pinpoint the location of a clot and updated therapeutic treatments that may help reverse or minimize the impact of a stroke.
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