Hutt Hospital Emergency Department (ED) recently joined other hospitals in the region to set up a telestroke service, speeding up the time it takes for stroke patients to get treated and improving their chance of a positive outcome.
The neurologist-led service provides someone admitted to ED with the means to talk to an on-call neurologist via mobile video screen – together with the local stroke team – for specialist advice regarding diagnosis and treatment.
“The telestroke service gives patients with stroke and stroke clinical teams immediate access to a neurologist following the initial scan, so they can get specialised assessment more quickly,” says Dr Tom Thomson, Medical Lead for the Hutt Stroke Service.
“Once the blood vessel to the brain is blocked, the brain starts dying. The sooner you get the vessel unblocked, the lower the chance of brain damage or death. Ideally you want to give patients the clot-busting drug within an hour of arriving at ED. If it’s a severe stroke and we can see a blocked blood vessel on the scan, we aim to get them to Wellington Hospital for clot retrieval by a neuro-interventionist.”
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“The service has been a game changer as it provides us with specialised support with complicated decision-making out-of-hours which we didn’t have before. You can get a stroke patient come in completely unable to speak, weak down one side and unable to see half their world, then be up and moving and speaking the next day because they’ve had treatment so quickly.”
Nursing Lead for the Hutt Hospital telestroke service, Amelie Chapman, says it was a challenge to set everything up earlier this year, as well as get everyone trained on how to use the equipment and up to speed with the process.
“There was a lot of work involved in getting things up and running, but it’s been so worthwhile. We’d like to acknowledge the ED staff who got onboard from the beginning and use the telestroke service to ensure stroke patients get the best care possible. Also to Alicia Tyson, Wellington Stroke Clinical Nurse Specialist and Central Region Stroke Lead, for all the support she provided the region’s hospitals.”
The telestroke service was initiated in 2016 by Wellington Hospital neurologist Professor Anna Ranta who secured Ministry of Health funding to purchase videoconferencing equipment for hospitals and neurologists followed by a region-wide business case to fund staffing time on completion of a successful pilot.
“Implementation of telestroke has been groundbreaking when it comes to ensuring all New Zealanders have equitable access to acute stroke treatments and it’s been amazing to see the entire regional team of clinicians work so collaboratively to get this off the ground,” Dr Ranta says. “We’re very proud to have achieved the highest clot-busting intervention rate in New Zealand.”
Dr Thomson says it’s great the service has now been rolled out right across the Central Region.
“We’re very grateful to the neurologists and neuro-interventionists who have stretched out to provide this service. We see the benefits for our patients every week.”
