Odds for Stroke Treatment Fall as Transfer Time Goes Up

Odds for Stroke Treatment Fall as Transfer Time Goes Up
Friday, May 6, 2011
By: Charles Bankhead

Charles Bankhead, MedPage Today

Prolonged delay in hospital transfer excluded about 15 percent of otherwise-qualified stroke patients from intraarterial therapy, data from a comprehensive stroke center showed.

Transfer time averaged 104 minutes, despite a median distance of less than 15 miles between hospitals. Transfer time increased to almost three hours in patients who did not undergo emergent angiography.

The odds of treatment decreased by about 2.5 percent for every minute of transfer time, investigators reported online in Stroke.

"Quality and outcome measures for comprehensive stroke centers are only emerging," Shyam Prabhakaran, MD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and coauthors wrote. "Our results argue for time-based metrics such as interhospital transfer and door-to-angiography times to be included along with procedural quality standards.