We sought to study a recently implemented prehospital emergency care system and its effects on the treatment level and prognosis of stroke patients. Prior to the introduction of the new system, no dispatch triage or prehospital care was available, and most patients accessed emergency care directly, without calling an emergency number. From April 2014 to March 2015, at our associate hospital's emergency department, 325 first-time acute stroke patients were admitted to the emergency department. This cohort was divided according to hospital admission method...
The first opportunity for prompt identification of a stroke in the prehospital environment often occurs when people telephone for emergency medical services. A better understanding of how callers and dispatchers communicate during emergency calls may assist dispatcher identification of stroke. To conduct a systematic review of the literature to determine communication factors associated with the identification of stroke during emergency calls. Six databases were searched (CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase, Informit, MEDLINE and PsychInfo). To meet...
The findings of a recent study suggest that a patient's inability to complete all three tasks in a stroke identification tool used by Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs) is a uniquely strong predictor of stroke. To examine the characteristics of the 17 cases in which the patient was unable to complete all three tasks in the Stroke Diagnostic Tool (SDxT). The retrospective descriptive study utilized stroke data from three sources in Salt Lake County, Utah, USA—Emergency Medical Dispatch, emergency medical services (EMS), and receiving hospitals—for...
