Stroke Rounds: ‘Golden Hour’ Care Unlikely for One-Third of Americans
Even under an optimistic scenario, as many as 114 million people in the U.S. would be unable to reach a comprehensive stroke center (CSC) using ground transportation within the critical treatment “golden hour,” researchers estimated.
Using mathematical optimization modeling assuming the conversion of up to 20 optimally located primary stroke centers (PSCs) to CSCs per state, researcher Michael T. Mullen, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues estimated that 63% of the population would live within a 1-hour drive and an additional 23% within a 1-hour flight of a stroke center.
Ground access would be lower in the southeastern U.S. “Stroke Belt” than in non-Stroke Belt states (32% versus 58.6%; P=0.02) and lower in states without emergency medical service routing policies (52.7% versus 68.3%; P=0.04), Mullen and colleagues wrote online in Neurology.
More: Stroke Rounds: ‘Golden Hour’ Care Unlikely for One-Third of Americans