NHS Wales’ Stroke Implementation Group is to implement an emergency ambulance triage pilot for stroke victims.
It has commissioned connected healthcare specialist Visonable to work with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust on trials aimed at helping patients bypass emergency departments and go straight to CT scanning.
They will use the company’s pre-hospital stroke triage solution, hosted on its VisionableONE platform, to give ambulance crews virtual access to an on-call team through an iPad app. This will enable them to share a feed of the patient with a hospital’s stroke specialist via the device’s camera.
The project is aimed at fully integrating the technology into the stroke care workflow at Cardiff and Value and provide a blueprint for further roll out around Wales.
Quick access to treatment
Shakeel Ahmad, national clinical lead for stroke at Cardiff and Vale UHB said: “We are excited to get this project off the ground. Our aim is to have a structured pre-hospital assessment so patients are put on the correct pathway in order to quickly access life changing treatments such as thrombolysis and thrombectomy.
“We hope the project will demonstrate a reduction in stroke mimics coming into hospital which will reduce the burden on the emergency department. Our vision is to digitally connect the entire stroke pathway and this is the first step in our journey.”
Diagnosing stroke can be challenging and many patients present to hospitals with stroke like symptoms known as stroke mimics. Figures from the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme show that 52.8% of stroke assessments in England and Wales were finally diagnosed as stroke mimics.
