Journal of telemedicine and telecare
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Telemedicine can be used to increase access to stroke thrombolysis in rural hospitals but is not widely used for this purpose in Australia. The Victorian Stroke Telemedicine (VST) programme commenced in one hospital in 2011, and is being expanded to a further 15 hospitals. The present study summarises progress in scaling up the VST programme from one to four hospitals. ⋯ For the 28 cases receiving a telephone-only consultation, 21 (75%) were deemed not to require a video consultation by the neurologist. The remaining seven consultations (25%) were telephone-only due to technical problems experienced with the telemedicine equipment. The preliminary results from the expansion of the VST programme to the three hospitals provides evidence of appropriate use, with almost 70% of the telemedicine consultations resulting in a diagnosis of stroke.