Featured Press Archives - Page 2 of 3

Featured Press: From Miles Away, A Doctor Can See A Stroke Victim – And Save A Life

The Barrow Mobile Stroke Unit manufactured by Excellance has been featured on the Arizona News channel CN. Read on.

Stroke victims who have only minutes to get treatment before their brains suffer permanent damage are getting help faster through the eyes of cameras on a mobile stroke van, doctors at Barrow Neurological Institute said.

“The fact is, we know time is brain,” said Gabriel Gabriel, a registered nurse who oversees the unit.

Guidelines say patients who receive treatment within 60 minutes of a stroke have the best chance of recovery, and on-the-scene treatment in the mobile stroke unit leads to shorter hospital stays of one or two days, Gabriel said.

Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death in the U.S., killing nearly 133,000 people a year, according to the American Stroke Association. The association says immediate treatment minimizes the long-term effects of a stroke and can even prevent death.

The Barrow van operates within a 20-minute radius of the hospital, at Third Avenue and Thomas Road in central Phoenix. Fire Department paramedics who attend to potential stroke victims call the van, which carries medical workers, supplies and equipment – and two cameras that can zoom in so closely they see a patient’s pupils. Doctors at the hospital can see the patient, assess the person’s condition and authorize treatment.

Dr. Michael Waters, director of the stroke program at Barrow Neurological Institute, can monitor and even talk to patients from the hospital while they’re being treated in the van. (Photo by Daria Kadovik/Cronkite News)

Barrow medical representatives, who spoke to members of the Association of Health Care Journalists touring the van, said it provides faster stroke diagnosis and treatment. The institute also presented other technology, including a 3-D printing of spines doctors use to practice surgical techniques.

The stroke unit, which costs about $1 million, also is equipped with a portable head CT scanner and a small laboratory so a physician at the hospital can assess the situation and evaluate the patient, said Dr. Michael Waters, director of the stroke program.

The stroke team on the van includes nurses and CT specialists who treat a patient under the guidance of the doctor monitoring the scene from Barrow. Then, a patient is transported to the hospital in an ambulance – with lights flashing and sirens blaring, it can reach the hospital faster than the van.

Gabriel said there are only about 11 similar units in the world.

Source: Cronkite News

Featured Press: Indiana Health Mobile Stroke Unit On FOX59

FOX59 has posted a new video featuring the new IU Health Mobile Stroke Unit manufactured by Excellance.

One hospital has a new tool to save lives when every seconds count. IU Health is rolling out the state’s first and only Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit. Dr. Jason Mackey and Judi Ayers with IU Health joined us on FOX59 Morning News to show us how it works.

Source: FOX59 Indianapolis

Excellance Units in the News: Southwest Airlines Flight Makes Unplanned Landing in Cleveland Following Reports of a Broken Window

The Washington Post has reported on an incident at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport where units manufactured by Excellance responded to a Southwest airline that had an emergency landing due to reports of a broken window. Read on.

A Southwest Airlines flight was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Cleveland on Wednesday after a passenger reported that part of an emergency exit window cracked while the plane was in the air.

The flight was Chicago’s Midway Airport to Newark was diverted to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

Southwest Airlines said the flight, with 76 passengers, was diverted to the Cleveland airport “for a maintenance review of one of the multiple layers of a window pane.” The airline did not specifically say that a window had broken, however. Southwest officials said there was no loss of pressurization in the plane’s cabin, noting that windows on the aircraft have “multiple panes.”

“The flight landed uneventfully in Cleveland,” Southwest said in a statement. “The aircraft has been taken out of service for maintenance review, and our local Cleveland employees are working diligently to accommodate the 76 Customers on a new aircraft to Newark.”

Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration said they are investigating the incident.

Images tweeted by one passenger show cracks in a window.

Southwest Flight 957 from Chicago/MDW to Newark just diverted to CLE according to DansDeals reader on the flight. The emergency exit window shattered in-air. The Crew stayed calm and cool while passengers ran away from the window #WN957 pic.twitter.com/6D8i2lxFxk
— DansDeals (@DansDeals) May 2, 2018

A spokeswoman at Cleveland International said the Southwest Airlines jet made an emergency landing at the airport around 11 a.m., but could not say whether the plane was damaged. She said no passengers were hospitalized and that several had been transferred to other aircraft. She referred additional questions to Southwest.

According to an account on the website, DansDeals, an unidentified passenger aboard the plane tweeted the above image. The traveler said he heard a loud crack after something apparently hit the window and shattered it. He said passengers in seated in the row “ran away” and others on the flight were “crying hysterically.”

The incident comes just a few weeks after a Southwest Airlines jet was forced to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia after one of the aircraft’s engines failed sending shrapnel into the plane and shattering a window. One passenger, Jennifer Riordan of Albuquerque was partially pulled out of the window. She was pulled back into the aircraft by other passengers, but later died. It was the first passenger fatality on a U.S. carrier since 2009 and the first in Southwest’s 51-year history.

On Tuesday, crew members and passengers from the Philadelphia flight visited President Trump at the White House.

Source: Washington Post

Featured Press: Cicero Makes Enhanced Medical Services Available in Emergencies

Rush University Medical Center has signed a deal with the town of Cicero to provide medical services to stroke victims with their new Mobile Stroke Unit manufactured by Excellance. Read on.

The Town of Cicero has signed a deal with Rush University Medical Center to make a specialized Mobile Stroke Unit available bolster medical services to stroke victims. The new unit will be available initially every day between the hours of 7 am until 7 pm but plans are to expand it to 24 hours
Cicero Town President Larry Dominick signed an agreement this week that grants access to Rush University Medical Center to make a specialized Mobile Stroke Unit available to assist in responding to stroke related emergencies.

The Mobile Stroke Unit will provide added medical treatment to supplement the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) provided by the Town of Cicero’s Fire Department ambulance teams.

The contract with Rush University Medical Center, 1700 W. Van Buren Street, in Chicago, to make the Mobile Stroke Unit available to the Town of Cicero was approved by the Town of Cicero Board at its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, April 10, 2018.

“I am very happy that we are able to expand our emergency response ambulance teams to include the Mobile Stroke Unit which also includes professional medical staff to respond to strokes,” said Town President Larry Dominick.

“This specialized unit will assist our paramedics in responding to medical emergencies involving strokes. By bringing the Mobile Stroke Unit to the patient, we are saving much time and time is a critical factor in saving lives.”

Cicero Fire Commissioner Dominick Buscemi said that the Cicero ambulance teams respond quickly to emergency calls, but he said that the issue is the time it takes to bring stroke patients to the hospital for treatment.

“Even though we can provide emergency assistance to sustain life and prevent death in many cases, individuals suffering from stroke have to be taken to the hospital for specialized treatment,” Buscemi said.

“By making the Mobile Stroke Unit available to the patients as they are being treated in their homes, or the location of their emergency, we are able to save a lot of time. And saving that time increases the likelihood that a stroke patient can survive the stroke.”

Rush is the recipient of a private grant to fund the Mobile Stroke Unit which is owned and operated by Superior and outfitted with a Rush-owned physician clinic, including physician consultation via telemedicine, a CT Scanner, clinical laboratory and certain other medical technology necessary to provide mobile stroke diagnosis and treatment.

The Mobile Stroke Unit will staffed and on emergency call near the Town of Cicero every day, initially during the hours of 7 am to 7 pm with plans to make availability 24 hours.

Source: Suburban Chicagoland

Featured Press: The Stroke Ambulance – An Innovation in Indiana and Possibly a Life Saver

The Indianapolis news channel WIBC has reported on the newly launched IU Health Mobile Stroke Unit manufactured by Excellance, Inc.

Indiana now has a stroke ambulance. It’s operated by IU Health in the capital city, but if the program is successful, and it’s proven that an ambulance that can take care of stroke patients and effectively begin treatment before they get to the hospital, there may be more.

The Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit should be operational by April.

What makes it a “stroke ambulance”

“The key innovation with this is that there’s a CT scanner (CAT) on the ambulance,” said Dr. Jason Mackey, a vascular neurologist with IU Health. “It allows us, in the field, to determine if somebody has had a stroke, what kind of stroke they’ve had, and if they’ve had the ischemic kind, then we can offer treatment in the field.”

Mackey explained that an ischemic stroke is one of two kinds. Ischemic means a blood clot blocks a vessel and causes the stroke. The other kind involved bleeding on the brain.

“Witrh ischemic stroke, time is brain. With every minute that goes by there’s a loss of 2 million neurons, on average,” he said. That means brain damage and the possible loss of functions or paralysis.

Having a stroke

“Most of the time when the family calls in, they’ll say I think so and so is having a stroke,” said Judy Ayers, director of the Academic Health Center, Stroke Programs, at IU Health. She explained how the stroke ambulance will be dispatched.

“They (911 dispatchers) have algorithms they work through where if they said, oh well my dad-his face is drooping, he can’t move his right side. Well then, that’s also probably a stroke. They usually take the cues from the caller to 911 dispatch.”

You might think it would cost more

She said that even though it might seem, with the CT scan equipment, that a ride in the stroke ambulance might cost more than a normal ambulance ride, “the goal we’ve been working towards is that this becomes our heart ER on wheels, so that the cost or charge difference is the same.”

Ayers said the hospital is using a study to prove that the stroke ambulance is necessary and economical.

“The up front cost of this ambulance, as you might imagine, is pretty considerable. We were lucky to have our Methodist Health Foundation donate a significant amount of the money to get us started,” said Ayers.

Mackey said if you think you or someone else near you is having a stroke, you should call 911 immediately, and starting in April, they will be able to send the stroke ambulance.

“Face drooping, arm weak, trouble speaking, please call 911 as quickly as possible, because time is brain,” he said. “We want to be part of the group of pioneers that identifies that this is not only helpful to patients, but makes financial sense.”

Source: WIBC

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