Abstract
Background and Purpose - Timely administration of intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator (IV tPA) is associated with improved outcomes for acute ischemic stroke; yet, developing processes to consistently provide prompt treatment remains a challenge. We developed and evaluated a simple quality improvement intervention designed to improve doorto- needle (DTN) times for resident-led Code Stroke teams at an academic medical center.
Methods - We evaluated a simple text-messaging based intervention with real-time feedback to improve DTN times for intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator. We used the rank-sum test and linear regression to evaluate for a change in DTN times that was temporally associated with the rollout of the intervention.
Results - A total of 202 patients received intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator; 94 preintervention and 108 postintervention. The median DTN time was significantly lower in the postintervention period (56 minutes [interquartile range 44-71] versus 82 minutes [IQR 68-103], P<0.0001) and a significantly higher proportion of patients were treated within 60 minutes (61% versus 16%, P<0.001).
Conclusions - A simple real-time text-messaging intervention was associated with a significant improvements in DTN times for acute ischemic stroke.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3714-3716 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | Stroke |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Door-to-treatment time
- Quality improvement
- Stroke
- Thrombolytic therapy
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Clinical Neurology
- Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
- Advanced and Specialized Nursing