ARTIFICIALLY POWERFUL STROKE CARE SAVES LIVES: Health First’s Advanced Stroke Care Returns Patients to Active Lives

Two years ago Health First deployed AI-based software

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Wayne Trzeciak had a pretty good idea of ​​what happened to him that afternoon last month. Suddenly a headache hit his left side, and almost immediately “the entire right side of my body died.”

He slipped from his office chair and collapsed on the floor.

Trzeciak’s mother was exactly the same age as him when she had her stroke; This was an emergency situation in which part of your brain was unable to maintain blood flow, typically because a blood clot was blocking the vessel, sometimes because the vessel itself was bleeding.

Trzeciak’s wife, Gail, had gone shopping but came home quickly and assessed the situation clearly and quickly. She made the right decision to call 9-1-1 instead of helping her husband get into the car and make the trip herself.

“It all starts with 9-1-1,” he says.

The ambulance and fire truck arrived in about 10 minutes. A few minutes later they were in the Emergency Department of Health First Viera Hospital, but paramedics had already performed the initial stroke assessment on site.

Investing in Advances in Stroke Treatment

Two years ago, Health First launched an AI-based software called Viz.ai that evaluates hospital computed tomography (CT) and helps pinpoint the culprit in a stroke. The software then sends the relevant images to the mobile phones of Stroke Team members.

Recently, Health First also invested in Telespecialists, a service with on-call neurologists who also take brain scans and consult with ER doctors and hospital specialists to immediately begin stroke-reversing treatments such as thrombolytics.

“Telespecialists provide rapid virtual assessment of stroke patients and expedite the urgent treatment decisions we need to make to achieve results like Wayne’s,” says neurologist Jill Miller, MD.

In most cases, thrombolysis (“clot buster”) is the best treatment to dissolve the blood clot and restore blood flow to the brain. At Health First, it is Tenecteplase, and Trzeciak received the bolus 28 minutes after arriving by ambulance.

“They gave me the clot buster and everything came back to life,” Trzeciak says. “I feel just like I did before the stroke.”

Stroke Alert Stops Diagnosis and Treatment for Minutes

Minutes matter in an innings. When oxygenated blood is withdrawn from brain tissue, it dies. Health First records the time from each stroke patient’s entry (“door”) to the time they are given a thrombolytic (“injection”), and today the healthcare system’s average door-to-injection time is a remarkable 45 minutes.

Dr. “This is a complex process of making the correct diagnosis, such as ischemic stroke, and then providing care,” Miller says.

“When a Stroke Alert is called, the entire team is called at the same time so that care can be carried out simultaneously. Nurses trained in stroke evaluate the patient at the bedside. The phlebotomist collects blood there. Radiology technicians place the patient on the scanner; the radiologist is alerted to review the scan immediately and the tele-neurologist “It also evaluates the entire scan on the screen and helps with the fastest diagnosis and treatment.”

He Came Back to His Bike

The Trzeciaks moved to Viera twice; The first was about a decade ago, before they left for work, and they returned a few years ago in retirement. They love it here for both the current amenities and the bright future.

“The care we received at Health First was incredible,” says Wayne Trzeciak.

Dr. “Strokes can be very devastating, and a lot of things have to happen quickly for us (doctors),” Miller says. “It is truly rewarding to see a patient who not only receives efficient and appropriate care, but also has the best possible outcome – complete resolution of their symptoms.”

Trzeciaks cycles up to 10 miles every day. Advanced stroke care at Viera Hospital, his wife’s quick actions, and the quick response of Brevard Fire Rescue helped him get back on his bike without significant injury.

He thanked the first responders who handled his case in advance and said he wished he could do the same for the hospital doctors and nurses who cared for him.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s to keep your medical appointments and follow the most prudent medical treatment, Trzeciak says. So, if a blood marker like cholesterol needs to be controlled with medications, don’t convince yourself that you’ll make adequate lifestyle changes instead.
“Don’t keep procrastinating and procrastinating.”

BEFAST

Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability in the United States, with approximately 800,000 people experiencing a stroke each year. The mnemonic Health First has adopted to help residents spot stroke symptoms is BEFAST

■ Balance Are you or your loved one unbalanced?
■ Eyes Is there vision loss?
■ Face Does the smile look uneven?
■ n Arm Is one arm weak?
■ Speech Is speech slurred?
■ Time to call 9-1-1.

Don’t ignore balance and vision symptoms (B. and E.), says Whitney Adkins, Nurse Manager of Health First’s Neuroscience Program. They are associated with anterior and posterior strokes, which present in ways that are often confused with other conditions: 16% of anterior strokes and 37% of posterior strokes are initially misdiagnosed.

And call 9-1-1, don’t just take your loved one to the nearest Emergency Room (and never drive yourself).

Dr. “This is key to having prompt, coordinated care,” says Miller. “EMS can assess the patient at the scene and share this with the nearest hospital stroke center en route. The patient is brought directly to the hospital CT scanner, and tele-neurology often performs a full assessment right next to the scanner.”

To learn about stroke and take a test to quickly assess risk, visit: HF.org/stroke.