IU Health Archives - Excellance

Featured Press: IU Health rolls out mobile stroke unit

The Indianapolis Business Journal has posted about the new Mobile Stroke from IU Health manufactured by Excellance.

Indiana University Health has begun using a new specialized vehicle with equipment capable of diagnosing and treating a stroke on-scene.

The Indianapolis-based system said its mobile stroke treatment unit contains a CT scanner, so it can scan patients instantly and send the results to physicians at IU Health Methodist Hospital.

The vehicle, which is larger than a standard ambulance and manned by a specially trained staff, also has blood-pressure-management medications and tPA, a clot-busting drug it says is highly effective when administered at the onset of a stroke.

SOURCE: Indianapolis Business Journal

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

Featured Press: Indiana University Health Adds CT Scans to 911 Calls for Stroke

Health Data Management has posted a new article about the Indiana University Health Mobile Stroke Unit manufactured by Excellance. Read on.

Indianapolis-based Indiana University Health, the largest network of physicians in the state, wants to limit the neurological damage associated with stroke by rushing a mobile computed tomography truck in addition to an ambulance on potential stroke victim calls.

“In stroke, time is so crucial,” says Jason Mackey, vascular neurologist and medical director of IU Health’s mobile stroke program. “We are looking for ways to reduce time to treatment.”

Strokes are caused by active bleeding or by a blood clot in the brain—knowing which is causing the medical emergency has a strong bearing on the outcome for the patient, and the course of treatment, because each varies widely.

“You don’t want to give a clot buster to a patient who doesn’t need it. That’s where scanning comes in handy in the field—you can scan [patients], and if they need treatment, you can give it,” Mackey says.

The sooner patients get the correct treatment, the likelihood of disability from the stroke is decreased. However, there is no current reimbursement for such a service, he says. IU Health’s Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit truck is made possible by a grant from the IU Health Foundation. Mackey says that when the mobile scanning unit is launched in a few weeks, it will be among roughly only a dozen or so like it in the country.

IU Health has spent the last three years laying out the plans, Mackey says. It’s faced a number of hurdles, because “it’s a new paradigm of delivering care.” It’s a multidisciplinary endeavor, involving emergency medical services, radiology and neurology, “bringing players to the table in a way that’s never done before,” he says. “We did it the right way and slowly built the agreement across multiple disciplines and institutions.”

According to Mackey, Methodist Hospital, where the ambulance takes its stroke victims, receives some 800 stroke cases a year. He cannot guess how many patients the CT truck will treat because initially the service will be available only during business hours and then on alternating weeks. “We’re going to start small,” he says. “Ultimately, we would like to expand and cover the entire county and portions of the city.”

Judi Ayres, director of stroke services at IU Health, says the Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit will carry a vascular neurologist, a critical care nurse, a paramedic, an EMT and a CT tech. It will take some time to work out logistics with the EMS unit. “Ordering the truck was the easy part,” she says.

Images from the CT scanner will be beamed via the strongest cellular network available and viewed in real time by a radiologist at the hospital and by the neurologist on the truck, Mackey says.

The project has involved “a sizeable upfront investment, on the order of $1 million,” and operation of the mobile unit is expected to cost $500,000 a year. “Because it’s such a resource-intensive program, it’s all the more reason to really study the outcomes,” Mackey says.

Currently there is little interest by the federal government or private payers in reimbursing for the mobile stroke care, but there is some hope for consideration in the future, Mackey says. However, in last February’s budget proposal, a provision in the federal budget expanded the Furthering Access to Stroke Telemedicine (FAST) Act, currently under consideration in Congress, to include mobile stroke units, he says.

Mackey says it will be at least a year until IU Health will assess the results of the project.

Source: Health Data Management

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

Featured Press: IU Health Rolls Out New Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit

The news channel 13 WTHR in Indianapolis has posted a new article about the IU Health Mobile Stroke Unit manufactured by Excellance, Inc.

Emergency workers have a new tool to help people who have a stroke quicker than before.

IU Health just received a new mobile stroke treatment unit, so workers can take it on the road.

It has a CT scanner inside, which sets it apart from a regular ambulance. They’ll staff it with specially trained workers to assess the situation.

“Every minute that goes by is associated with a loss of 2 million neurons, so the faster we can identify a stroke patient’s potential candidates and the faster we can get them the clot-busting medication, the better,” said Dr. Jason Mackey, who is a vascular neurologist.

Strokes are the fourth leading cause of death in Marion County. The number of people who have strokes there is higher than the national average.

“The clot-busting medicine that Dr. Mackey mentioned, we only have four and a half hours to give that and quite frequently, our patients report after that,” said Judi Ayres, who is the director of stroke programs at IU Health.

Doctors say this will help them treat patients at least 30 minutes quicker and then they can send them to the ER.

Source: 13 WTHR

Tag: IU Health