TY - JOUR
T1 - Multidisciplinary protocol for rapid head computed tomography turnaround time in acute stroke patients
AU - Bershad, Eric M.
AU - Rao, Chethan P.Venkatasubba
AU - Vuong, Kevin Dat
AU - Mazabob, Janine
AU - Brown, Gerard
AU - Styron, Suzan L.
AU - Nguyen, Thuy
AU - Delledera, Elizabeth
AU - Smirnakis, Stelios M.
AU - Lazaridis, Christos
AU - Georgiadis, Alexandros L.
AU - Mokracek, Marilyn
AU - Seipel, Timothy J.
AU - Nisbet, John J.
AU - Baskaran, Visveshwar
AU - Chang, Andrew H.
AU - Stewart, Patrick
AU - Suarez, Jose I.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 National Stroke Association.
PY - 2015/6/1
Y1 - 2015/6/1
N2 - Background The door-to-computed tomography (CT) head reporting time is an essential step to determining eligibility for thrombolysis in acute stroke patients, but the specific components of the process have not been reported in detail. Methods We performed a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of the prospectively collected Get-With-The-Guidelines database in our comprehensive stroke center to evaluate the effect of a structured multidisciplinary protocol on head CT times in acute stroke patients under consideration for thrombolysis. Results The median CT turnaround time in the first 6-month period was 27 (interquartile range [IQR], 27) and decreased in all subsequent periods after implementation of a formal protocol to 18 (IQR, 12; range, 17-20 minutes; P <.0001 for all pairwise comparisons). The median CT turnaround time was 18 (IQR, 12) versus 20 (IQR, 14) minutes for patients with admission diagnosis of stroke (n = 1123) versus nonstroke (n = 685; P <.0001), respectively. Conclusions A structured multidisciplinary protocol for obtaining acute stroke protocol head CT scan was associated with reduced CT turnaround time over the study period. Prospective studies should be done to determine if implementation in other stroke centers confirms the effectiveness of our protocol.
AB - Background The door-to-computed tomography (CT) head reporting time is an essential step to determining eligibility for thrombolysis in acute stroke patients, but the specific components of the process have not been reported in detail. Methods We performed a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of the prospectively collected Get-With-The-Guidelines database in our comprehensive stroke center to evaluate the effect of a structured multidisciplinary protocol on head CT times in acute stroke patients under consideration for thrombolysis. Results The median CT turnaround time in the first 6-month period was 27 (interquartile range [IQR], 27) and decreased in all subsequent periods after implementation of a formal protocol to 18 (IQR, 12; range, 17-20 minutes; P <.0001 for all pairwise comparisons). The median CT turnaround time was 18 (IQR, 12) versus 20 (IQR, 14) minutes for patients with admission diagnosis of stroke (n = 1123) versus nonstroke (n = 685; P <.0001), respectively. Conclusions A structured multidisciplinary protocol for obtaining acute stroke protocol head CT scan was associated with reduced CT turnaround time over the study period. Prospective studies should be done to determine if implementation in other stroke centers confirms the effectiveness of our protocol.
KW - Acute stroke
KW - computed tomography
KW - thrombolysis
KW - turnaround time
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2015.01.029
DO - 10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2015.01.029
M3 - Article
C2 - 25920753
AN - SCOPUS:84930182682
SN - 1052-3057
VL - 24
SP - 1256
EP - 1261
JO - Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases
JF - Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases
IS - 6
ER -