Rubber Meeting the Road: Access to Comprehensive Stroke Care in the Face of Traffic

Dworkis DA, Axeen S, Arora S. Rubber meeting the road: Access to comprehensive stroke care in the face of traffic. Acad Emerg Med. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.13909.

Acute stroke is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, with an estimated annual cost of $34 billion and a death from stroke occurring approximately every 4 minutes. Early access to specialized stroke care is critically important in the treatment of suspected acute stroke, but access to dedicated stroke centers is unequal and varies geographically. Among the different levels of hospitals providing stroke care, the comprehensive stroke center (CSC) is the highest designation: CSCs utilize multidisciplinary stroke teams to provide the most advanced stroke care, including therapies like endovascular clot retrieval that are not available at most non‐CSC hospitals.