Choosing a Hospital For Acute Stroke Care
If you or someone you know is having stroke symptoms, it is extremely important that you go to a hospital where there is stroke neurologist on staff. Many small hospitals employ general neurologists to assess and treat strokes, but the rapid growth in stroke medicine, and the advent of multiple new ways to treat stroke now call for more specialized care.
A few years ago a conventional emergency room with a general neurologist or emergency room doctor was the normal setting for the diagnosis and treatment of strokes. However, stroke medicine has advanced to the point of becoming a subspecialty within neurology, and hospitals now are finding the need to implement specialized “stroke units”, and even neuro-intensive care units where stroke patients are assessed and treated during the first few hours to days after a stroke.
I strongly recommend that you find out whether or not your nearest hospital has a stroke unit. If the answer is no, find out where the closest hospital with a stroke unit is located so that, if you have a choice of where to go in an emergency, you can choose the hospital that is most likely to provide you or your loved one with optimal stroke care.
Learn to recognize the symptoms of stroke
Comments
too many cities in the US have no Primary Stroke Centers and telling patients to check in their area can be disconserting when they find they don’t have one. this is mostly due to the lack of neurology coverage. What the public needs to know is the lack of neurology involvement in hospital stroke cases because they will tell you–and laugh in your face–that they make more money in their office so why waste the time in the hospital. So when you check for Primary Stroke Center in your area, good luck, but unless you are houston or new york, there won’t be one.
There is a reason why there are a few stroke centers in this country, and although the lack of neurologists might be a part of it, the most important part is that the actual idea to create stroke centers in the US was only born 8 years ago.
The concept has caught on in most states and it is only a matter of time before competition forces in the health care system drive all hospitals to become certified.