• Medicine · Mar 2015

    Emergency department companions of stroke patients: implications on quality of care.

    • Liat Ashkenazi, Ronen Toledano, Victor Novack, Esther EIluz, Ibrahim Abu-Salamae, and Gal Ifergane.
    • From the Department of Neurology (LA, EI, IAS, GI); Clinical Research Center (RT, VN), Soroka University Medical Center; and Faculty of Health Sciences (LA, RT, VN, EI, IAS, GI), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
    • Medicine (Baltimore). 2015 Mar 1; 94 (9): e520.

    AbstractAcute care of stroke victims largely relies on the rapid identification and timely clinical and radiological assessment. We evaluated the effect of the number of patient companions on the efficiency of the diagnostic process in the emergency department (ED).Consecutive stroke patients admitted to the ED between August 2011 and October 2012 were evaluated. Clinical, epidemiological, and timeline data (symptoms onset, ED arrival, computed tomography [CT] scanning, and recombinant tissue plasminogen activator infusion), as well as the number of accompanying persons in the ED were prospectively recorded. We used multivariate Poisson log linear models to analyze the association of number of companions adjusted and door-to-CT times and logistic regression for the analysis of the successful identification of stroke patient by ED triage nurse.Out of a total of 724 stroke patients admitted, data regarding number of ED companions were available for 610 (84.3%) patients. Number of companions was associated with higher National Institute of Health Stroke Scale and speech disturbances. It was found to be independently associated with shorter time to CT scanning adjusted for the stroke severity, sex, and speech disturbances (no companions as a reference group, relative risks 0.82, 0.73, and 0.70 for 1, 2, and ≥3 companions, respectively, all P < 0.001). Similarly, number of companions was associated with higher rates of stroke recognition by the triage nurse adjusted for covariates (odds ratios 2.11, 2.62, and 4.11, respectively, all P < 0.05).Our findings suggest that the family members and other companions could serve as facilitators of faster and more effective ED management of stroke patients, possibly improving their outcome.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…