St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital's Stroke Center, a hub of the Michigan Stroke Network led by Wayne State University School of Medicine Associate Professor of Neurology Ramesh Madhavan, M.D., was recognized this week with the American Heart and Stroke Association's highest national distinction pertaining to quality of care.
The Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award was given to the center for consistent adherence to the association's seven treatment and quality of care guidelines for at least 24 consecutive months. The Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Achievement Measures is a collaborative program to improve adherence to evidence-based care of patients hospitalized with stroke. Hospitals are required to achieve, document and benchmark measures based on scientific guidelines known to improve stroke care.
"When a patient suffers a stroke, about 2 million neurons, 7.5 miles of myelinated nerves and 14 billion synapses are destroyed without treatment. The patient's brain ages three and a half years per hour compared to a normal brain. This is what we have prevented by our united team effort," Dr. Madhavan said. "Are we going to stop with this achievement? Absolutely not."Dr. Madhavan, the Wayne State University Physician Group's associate chief medical officer of Informatics, estimates that the network has treated thousands of stroke patients and has consistently given tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, a clot-busting medication, in less than 60 minutes. The St. Joseph-based team also was named to the Target: Stroke Award's honor roll for achieving at least one calendar quarter of 50 percent or higher achievement of door-to-treatment times within 60 minutes in applicable stroke patients.
The Michigan Stroke Network is an initiative of Trinity Health. The network is one of the largest stroke networks in the country that use the "hub and spoke" model for providing comprehensive stroke care. The WSU stroke team, consisting of vascular and critical care fellowship-trained neurologists, provides acute stroke coverage at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland and other hospitals in the area that serve as hub hospitals and "spoke" care to about 35 hospitals in Michigan. When a stroke pager is activated, the patient is assessed on site. The same principle is applied at off-site community hospitals using telemedicine as a bridge. The patient is examined by a physician with the help of a remote robot and the onsite emergency department physician. Images and results are viewed remotely by the stroke neurologist.
"The credit goes to the change in the emergency department process. We have provided cutting-edge treatment and management of these very sick patients due to the tireless efforts of the Wayne State University Physician Group's fellows, stroke and interventional neurologists," he said.
Dr. Madhavan, the school's director of telemedicine, also talked at the awards presentation about taking the Michigan Stroke Network's efforts to the field in the near future.
"We are ready to do a trial of telemedicine in ambulances, roll out a universal image repository for the partner hospital image storage and mobile apps to improve the transition of care in these patients and, last but not the least, apply the process to other diseases. Our dream is to progress and make the Michigan Stroke Network … the Michigan Specialty Network," he said.