During a stroke, every second counts. That’s why Galesburg Cottage Hospital holds drills to make sure staff are prepared for an actual stroke alert.
Yesterday’s stroke scenario at Cottage Hospital started with a phone call from a mock stroke patient. Galesburg Hospitals’ Ambulance Service responded and drove the patient to Cottage.
The patient was immediately administered a CT scan and given a tPA, which dissolves blood clots.
Stroke and Chest Pain Coordinator Jenna Johnson tells WGIL the tPA needs to be administered as quickly as possible.
“Guidelines state that we need to give it within 60 minutes within their arrival time,” she says. “And we were actually, today, able to give it in 35 minutes. That’s the improvement for the CT time because we give the tPA until we know if their bleeding or not in their brain.”
She says the hospital recently began taking stroke patients directly form the scene to CT as a way to administer the tPA faster.
Departments participating in yesterday’s mock scenario include emergency, radiology, laboratory and intensive care as well as the stroke coordinator and other supervisors.
Johnson says in a statement Cottage Hospital had 64 stroke alerts in 2014 and 53 in 2015. Stokes can be caused by lipid levels in people’s blood, a factor checked to determine if medication is needed when stroke patients are discharged.
